Nephilim? He dipped his face near to sniff her, pressing his nose against her temple. She grimaced and leaned away as the subtle scent of rotten eggs wafted from him. The sharp edge of his knife nicked the side of her neck.
He gripped a handful of her hair, pulling forward to bare the back of her neck. A whimper managed to slip past her lips.
“Bingo. We have a mark.” Something cold traced her birthmark. “It’s the damnedest thing.” He released her hair to grab her jaw and turn her. “I can smell what you are but can’t read your aura. Not a damn bit.”
He stepped away, but his knife was still at her neck, threatening to pin her like an insect in a display box. His free hand roughly skimmed her body in search of something under her clothes.
“This is my first score, you know. Boss is gonna be so happy.”
Her stomach turned. It’d serve him right if I threw up all over his boots.
Be smart. All those hours of self-defense training meant something.
The man froze. “Hold up. Are you ovulating?” He sniffed, pressing closer.
The gag reflex was impossible to hold back.
“Damn, if I wasn’t already sworn to Nema downstairs, I’d deliver you right to the big dogs in Peru. Could even start a fucking bidding war.” He laughed, moved back a little, but it was enough.
Peru? Oh God, this was everything her father ever warned her about. Forcing her body to relax, she let herself become dead weight and slid out of his hold. As soon as she hit the ground, she kicked out with both feet and all her strength. Solid contact. He grunted and stumbled.
She didn’t wait. Jumping up, she ran in the direction of the bar, but immediately hit a barricade of muscle.
The demon grabbed at her. In a quick motion, she rammed the base of her palm into his nose, then kicked and ducked. With him off balance, she veered to the side in a blind attempt to get away. The ground fell out from under her, and she hit wet concrete. Hard. The free fall took her down a culvert.
When she’d tumbled to the bottom, a scrape burning her cheek, she groaned and pushed up, pain spiking through her limbs with each jolt. A shake of her head cleared her sight.
But he was already there, hauling her to her feet and twisting her around to backhand her. Bleak darkness swam through her vision. She threw her head forward without thinking, slamming her skull against her captor’s nose. Stars burst through the darkness.
“No use running, little pig.” Laughter in his voice. The headbutt didn’t even faze him. “If you’re no good for the breeding program or the experiments, I’m sure the boss lady won’t let you go entirely to waste.”
With all the force of her body, her elbows, feet, and anything else she could move, she slammed against the man. “Let me go.” she shouted, her voice echoing across the concrete canal. She would not go down easy.
“Just hold still, little pig. Knocking you out will make this a whole lot quicker.” Her knees yielded as the demonic mechanic raised the hilt of his blade.
Hands groped Ramiel, the blond human filled with the musk of desire. Memories of the woman who called herself Kyria resurfaced to torture him.
The woman brushed and teased and flirted as they reached the top of the stairs. A hand slid down his abdomen, fingers reached for the space between clothes and skin.
He humored her with an apathetic nip to her neck. Salty. Heavily perfumed. I hate this. It never fucking ends.
The pulse under his touch beat faster. A drink was all he needed. He’d take just enough blood that she would drift to sleep, then he’d leave. His lips found the pulse, and his fangs dropped, ready to impale. A scream echoed in his ears as they neared his private room. His head jerked up, rattling the chains with a hollow echo.
The corridor was empty. Just his mind playing tricks.
Ramiel refocused on the pulsating blood so close to his teeth, but the feminine cry interrupted again, echoing against his skull.
They stopped at his door, and an image flashed through his mind in a way that he hadn’t experienced since he had fallen.
Red hair whipped through the air as dark shadows pushed and circled him. He braced an arm on the doorframe, adrenaline pumping hard from his core.
The quick sequence of prophetic moments darted in and out of his consciousness as he and the blonde shuffled into his private room, the door closing behind them.
A girl’s plea. A shout of gibberish that was too fast for him to pick up. A flash of the brightest light. Blood and burned flesh. A valley of mutilated, winged corpses rotting in a blistering red sun which sat across a black sky.
Ramiel stumbled, staggering to the side, and barely managed to catch himself on the edge of the bed. Something solid pressed into his back. The drunken giggles of the woman in the room clashed with unexplainable images. He fought to separate the physical world with the hallucination.
No. It was a vision.
The smoothest skin, smelling like ginger, reached for him. The phantom was so real until the heavy touch of a stranger slammed him back into the present. The whiskey and tequila in his gut rebelled, stopping in his throat. Shoving past the woman, he charged out of the bedroom.
He turned to escape both the physical world and the vision. Searing claws dug into his chest, burrowing toward his contracting lungs, blocking the air from coming or going.
The walls of the narrow stairs jostled his shoulders. A single ribbon of light and warmth drew him back into the main bar area. A silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant dangled from the fingers of a man showing it off to his drunk buddies.
“Guess it broke off when I pushed the bitch away. Well, it’s mine now.” Their chuckles wavered and red flooded his vision. It was hers. The sweet scent wafted from the fine jewelry all the way over to him.
The man was already swaying backward when Ramiel charged over and threw him off the stool, slamming him into the ground with a hand crushing his throat. He yanked the delicate jewelry from his fingers, ignoring the gasps for air and the clawing at his wrist.
“Mine.” Then he let go and rushed away as the bartender shouted for security. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
The exit door busted open under the force of his heavy boot. Staggering over the uneven threshold, Ramiel rushed outside to his bike as his shaky hand shoved the necklace into his pocket. The bitter wind burst with phantom calls for help, filling his senses with miserable frustration.
One smooth motion and he settled down in the leather seat of his motorbike. Gripping the familiar handles, he took a deep breath. Head down to center himself, he pushed his hair back, ignoring the metallic laughter of his mocking chains. Under his shaking hands, the engine revved and charged out of the back alley. One more hopeless attempt to outrun the demons that lived inside him.
What kind of sick joke was his backstabbing Mother playing now? After all this time of silence and darkness…
Now there was something he hadn’t considered in decades. The Mother, what humans called God. That was one of the biggest things the bible got wrong. Words from the Mother written by men. Idiot humans thought they were so smart. They didn’t know a damn thing.
When he was first captured, Ramiel had begged and prayed for God’s voice, for Her to hear him, for a sign that he hadn’t been completely forgotten.
Darius once appeared in the shadows of his cell, years ago. But the bastard had turned his back on him, too. Like everyone else in his life. Now the man’s daughter was seeking him out. He didn’t like it.
The power of the motor roared into the right turn as he opened the throttle.
He wanted nothingness, but the feminine scream filled his head again. Long red curls turned into a flow of blood, obscuring his vision.
The image of her standing in the death grip of a yellow-eyed figure came into focus. A demon. He stopped the bike, planting his heavy boots on the concrete, and dragged a calloused palm down his face.
It was none of his business.
A new vision whipped
through his mind’s eye, clashing with the bloody images from earlier. Kyria hugged a faceless man and laughed in the sunlight. Nothing but joy. Sickeningly sweet. Pure. Innocent. All things that usually irritated him, made him suspicious. Yet, this time it managed to calm him long enough for him to pull back and take a peek into his pocket. The silver locket gleamed in the streetlight above, exuding a subtle but unmistakable magic. It had been warded to protect its wearer.
Cursing under his breath, he whipped the Harley around and headed back to the bar. A new urgency pushed him as he tore into the east parking lot, following her scent.
Chapter Five
Ramiel stood at the top of the culvert. Below, Kyria’s run turned into a defensive stance, the demon trapped in an iron grip. This woman had some fire in her. He couldn’t remember the last time he fought. Dormant pride swelled from a strange place within.
Hatred and bitterness strangled it back into place. As an archangel, he smote creatures like this before breakfast, never breaking a sweat, a war general of heaven who stood tall. Now, as a blood slave, he served them.
He fisted the chain. Not tonight.
The moonlight flashed along the edge of the sword aimed at his redhead. He frowned and reached for a dagger.
There was a small bit of joy in stopping the dog from having his fun.
When the demon flipped his blade and lifted the heavy pommel to smash against Kyria’s head, he threw his dagger. It flew and neatly embedded into his thick wrist with a sharp slick sound. The knife dropped, the demon’s bark of pain cutting through the night.
The freezing wind flapped the edge of Ramiel’s short leather jacket as he descended the concrete slope. “Let the girl go.”
“Ramiel? Aren’t you supposed to be off sucking on some necks? Nema won’t be happy you’re interfering with her plans.” The demon grinned and turned his head to sniff his captive. “Can’t blame you, though. She smells awesome. We can share before I bring her in. No rules against taking a little sip.”
“Let her go.”
The big bastard moved to stand between him and Kyria. “You should leave, slave, before this gets out of hand.”
Silence stretched as Ramiel weighed his options. “She’s mine.” He ignored the sound of indignation and let the hatred in his glare speak loud and clear.
The demons were his torturers down in hell. But up top, he had the advantage. As limited as it was for the fallen, every angel had some holy light they could burn.
He held out his hand to Kyria but maintained eye contact with the demon.
“You’re nothing but a whipped dog, Ramiel. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”
Ram’s frown deepened. “Does it look like I care?”
“Watch out!” Kyria yelled.
At the same time she shouted her warning, he caught a dagger, right before the tip could puncture his neck. His own dagger. The demon thought him slow and stupid.
He slipped the sharp knife into its hiding place then gave one last command. “Let her go. Now.” He didn’t need to say something stupid like “or else.” A light seeped from within the murky depths of his rotting soul. It channeled down his arms, and his palms glowed.
The demon stirred in discomfort. With a low, harsh hiss, he let Kyria go. Her cold hand trembled as she reached for him, and he sensed her heart rate increasing.
“She’s mine,” he repeated.
What’s wrong with me? Why do I keep saying that?
“It’s pointless, Ram. You only got seven days. And when your time is up, this little Nephilim is mine. You might as well take her to Nema yourself.”
Nema would never get her hands on his redhead. It wasn’t just blood she’d want from the Nephilim.
Kyria becoming another broodmare experiment for the demoness was not an option. He needed to hit something. Hard.
“No,” he snapped.
“She’s one of the marked. No matter where you go, I’ll find her.” A snarl ripped from the demon. It nearly elicited a reaction from Ramiel, but a soft warmth pressed against his ribs.
Kyria protected his blindside. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had his back in a tough spot. He let the silence fill the air for a second and savored the natural heat of her body. “We’re done here.”
He was finished playing nice. He had to deliver Kyria to Darius, so he could get on with his life. As crappy as it was, the last thing he needed was entanglement with a half-breed.
“What are you gonna do, Ram? Take her all the way to New Zealand with you? Your watcher friends can’t help her once I tell Nema and the Peruvian about her,” the demon challenged, unfurling the corruption of his black wings.
Ramiel’s shoulders pulled to expand his own golden wings in a display of dominance, but all he got was a painful tug across his scarred shoulders, a hard reminder of his current existence.
He glared. “They can all rot.” He didn’t care about any of them, demons or angels. He had no family. Hatred burned in his gut.
An icy chill crawled up his spine as he nudged Kyria up the culvert. “Get on the bike.”
The demon stepped out of shadows, blocking their path to the bike and reaching for Kyria. Grabbing the bastard’s arm, Ramiel delivered a shock of white light. The demon shouted and disappeared in a puff of dark smoke. A few black feathers fluttered to the ground.
Damn it, Nema was going to make him pay for that. “Get on.” Within seconds she had her arms around him, and her chest pressed against his back. Like he was some fucking hero. The heat soaked through his leathers and gave him the kind of comfort he forgot existed.
“You told him I was yours. What did you mean? What are you?”
His jaw locked. An idiot, that’s what he was. Turning his head so she could hear him, he asked. “What hotel?”
He was going to drop her off and get the hell out of town, leading the demon away if he had to.
Chapter Six
Kyria settled in behind him. Was he a demon, too, or something else?
His broad back protected her from the chilly wind. It was almost over, in less than five minutes they would be at the hotel and her father would be saved.
Cold fingers sought out the front opening of his jacket and dipped under, gripping his hard abdomen. The warmth of his body like a beacon, she hugged closer. What would it feel like to wrap myself under this shirt completely?
Everything about him should have terrified her, but her gut instinct was to hang onto him, protect him. Of all her lessons, the one that she reached for now was to always follow her instincts.
The angry tension in his body vibrated through her as she clung tight. Ramiel said something, but the wind took the words away.
Glancing over her shoulder, she nearly lost her balance. Dark shapeless forms of shadows and crawling things raced toward them.
She pulled herself as close to him as she could physically manage. He leaned low as they took a sharp turn. The thin trail of dark smoke danced through the shadows like a snake, still following them. Right along with a swarm of flying cockroaches.
“Oh my God. What the hell is that?” She doubted he was going to hear her over the roar of his engine and the wind blowing past them.
But he answered, “It’s a Blight.” he glanced over his own shoulder a couple of times as the smoke passed them up and disappeared down the street. “A type of lesser demonic spirit. They like to possess human bodies.”
Ramiel took them up an overpass. She wasn’t afraid of heights or anything, but with the speed he was going…
“Why can’t you just take them out like the first one?” Oh my God, what am I saying? But survival was crucial, and Ramiel had just thrown her attacker to the ground with a flash of white light like it was nothing. The guy disintegrated immediately. If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she never would have believed it.
“I’m out of juice.”
Something large darted in front of them. “Look out!” A man blocked their path with a wingspan that
stretched from one edge of the bridge to the next.
The swarm of roaches caught up and engulfed them. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath, clinging to Ramiel. Thousands of little roach feet stuck to her skin and crawled through her hair. Their antennas scraped and prodded at her nose and ears.
She wanted to scream but pressed her face hard against Ramiel’s shoulder. These things weren’t just bugs. She could sense the malicious intent beneath every hard shell.
Ramiel fired a gun. Several times.
A screech rang out. Fresh air, cold and sharp, stung her face. Kyria opened her eyes. The roaches scattered and the winged creature vanished. Relief swamped her just as an intense light flooded the area, blinding her as a horn blared. They had driven into the wrong lane and were about to meet an oversize truck straight on.
Ramiel twisted the handles, swerving sharply. Tires squealed. Metal screeched against the pavement. The bike flipped, crashing against the concrete wall of the bridge.
Pain shot down the back of her neck. Her ears rang.
Ramiel twisted and grabbed her with his free arm, the chain attached to his other arm jangling with frantic movement.
They plunged into the pitch-black abyss. The wind roared past her, through her, burning her skin. Her spine rippled with pain as if the scream stuck in her throat was clawing for another escape.
Tightening her body around Ram, she held her breath. Waiting for impact.
But it never came. The falling stopped. Something held them suspended over the raging river. A floating sensation. Were they dead and it happened so fast that the pain passed right through her?
She waited. Hugging Ram, she tried to bury herself deeper into his warmth. His heart beat.
Wait. If they were dead, why did she hear the blood pounding through his body?
Then his voice pulled her out of the confusion in her brain. His rough voice, muffled by something.
“Open your eyes, dammit.”
She did. Then for the first time during their mad run, she screamed. They were floating. Something pulled at the muscles on her back, and she panicked, looking all around. The quick flap of awkward wings rushed around them. It was the huge wings that kept them in the air.
Unchained Desire Page 3