Trisha Telep (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (epub)

  “They do have a talent for chaos.” And for eluding divine retribution, but she knew better than to remind him of that. “What I believe, and I think Nirgal shares my concern, is that they’re trying to bring back their buddies.”

  “Not possible. No.” Again, Ahadiel shook his head, this time with more vehemence. “Their offences were too extreme, and not even Raguel has the power, under compulsion or otherwise, to release them. It would take the intercession of an archangel, and there’s no way that would happen.”

  “Are you sure?”

  While she didn’t share his rock-solid faith and never had, it still hurt to see the flash of doubt in his eyes. Yes, he was only a being forged to carry out a divine will, but it angered her how the archangels showed so little compassion for their living, breathing tools. She didn’t particularly like Lucifer, but she could understand some of the reasoning that had driven him to rebel.

  When he didn’t answer, Prima added, more gently, “The archangels have been known to move in mysterious ways, especially Azrael. It was only a matter of time before agitators like Harut or Maroth found a human body strong enough to host a disembodied angel. They won’t need an archangel’s intercession if they can cheat their way out of the problem. Helel’s just Plan B.”

  “I see.” Ahadiel fell silent as he considered the situation. “Why spend years breeding unstable, difficult to manage children, when you can create one the old-fashioned way.”

  “Exactly.” She sighed. “If they can do this, their comrades-in-chaos are going to come back kinda cranky and not so inclined to play nice with the humans. Lucifer will be furious, and he’ll blame the demons for betraying him. Most demons barely tolerate the Fallen and will use any excuses to break the truce. Lilith will play both sides, as she usually does. The archangels are going to have a hissy fit regardless, and what follows will be a mess only a prophet could love.”

  He leaned back, head resting against the wall. “We have to stop them.”

  “Yup” The exhaustion, momentarily pushed aside, returned, and Prima gave in, briefly closing her eyes. “Got plans?”

  “It was either Harut or Maroth who sent the kerubim. I’ll go back to the site of the attack to pick up their imprint, and then I’ll track them.”

  “What about me?”

  “Can you reverse the compulsion spell someone has set over the creatures?”

  “Maybe. It won’t be easy, and, to be honest, if that’s your plan, I’m going to need to get some sleep. Interstitial travel wipes me out, and I’m so tired right now I can hardly think straight. It doesn’t help I haven’t slept well in days because of stress.”

  Ahadiel didn’t need sleep, but she needed time to recharge the mystical batteries, so to speak. To humans, she might seem superhero strong; unfortunately, she was less Dark Phoenix and more Buffy/Willow, with a side of wings. Also, “Godspeed” might define his ability to tap into the life forces washing over the planet, but hers was more comparable to a 56k modem.

  Prima expected he’d make one of his typically arrogant comments about this. Instead, he said, “Kerubim are night guardians; they’ll be less powerful in daylight.”

  She blinked, now feeling a little guilty for her bitchy thoughts. “And they’ll be easier for me to control.”

  “All right, then. We leave at dawn.”

  “Ahadiel, you do realize Harut and Maroth will be expecting us.”

  “Yes.” He straightened his legs out along the floor, then stretched.

  Prima tried not to stare, failed miserably, then tried to put the kibosh on that sudden flare of desire, and failed at that too. Great. A celestial détente, tens of thousands of years in the making, was in peril, and all she could think about was seducing an angel in a power substation.

  How classy.

  “I’ll be more of a hindrance than a help,” she said, after a moment. “Maybe you should forget about staying around here to save the kerubim, and just leave me behind.”

  “No.” The denial was instant; he hadn’t even considered it. “That would leave you unprotected, and one of them will kill you. We stay together.”

  “They outnumber you, even more so if Helel is with them. They’ll separate us, and use me against you.”

  He tipped his head towards her, smiling. “Thank you for that tremendous vote of confidence in my abilities.”

  Embarrassment heated her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it. There might be another—”

  He silenced her by pressing a finger against her lips. “Go to sleep, Prima. I’ll keep you safe. I swear it.”

  When it came to resisting her attraction to Ahadiel, she’d always found a kind of security in her belief that he was strong enough for both of them. So sure of that strength, of his unshakable devotion to his duty, she’d rarely considered how she might respond to him on a more intimate level, should such an unlikely chance ever present itself.

  Now the impossible had become possible, and out of all the reactions she had considered, this overwhelming fear for him hadn’t been one of them.

  He hadn’t removed his finger, and her lips moved against it as she said, “Slippery slope, Ahadiel. Look it up.”

  “As I’ve told you before, I serve the will of Heaven.” He lowered his hand, hooked his finger in the collar of her turtleneck sweater, and gave it a firm tug. “Come here. You’re a soft, decadent, troublesome woman, and while I’m no substitute for your goose-down pillows and comforters, I’m more comfortable than a floor.”

  She shouldn’t, no matter how much she might want to. While he didn’t realize yet that he stood on a precipice, she recognized the danger signs. Giving him even a little push over that edge would be a poor way to repay him for the care he’d shown her in the past. It occurred to her, abruptly, that her predicament wasn’t accidental. Nirgal or Azrael were playing games again. Ahadiel wasn’t the only oblivious tool in this room.

  With a sigh, she scooted forwards and let him pull her against his chest and close his arms around her. To hell with it; she’d simply have to rise to the occasion for once in her life and show everyone she wasn’t quite the weak outcast they thought.

  With his heat lulling her into relaxing, Prima gave a little sigh and closed her eyes, smiling. She fell asleep almost immediately and, in the last moment before slipping under, she wondered if she’d really felt a soft kiss on the crown of her head.

  Almost as instantly, she woke. At first, slightly disorientated, she didn’t understand what had pulled her from sleep – and then she felt it: a light touch against her hip, slowly moving upwards. No inappropriate liberties taken, only a light, tentative contact.

  Full awareness returned, and she noted that she lay curled along Ahadiel’s chest. He sat with his knees slightly raised, anchoring her against his body, one hand on the small of her back while he explored the curves of her body with the other.

  Prima forced herself to remain still and breathe evenly, although she doubted she could fool him for long. Curious – and, admittedly, more than a little turned on – she wanted to see what else he’d do while he thought her lost in the oblivion of sleep.

  Dawn was almost upon them. It could be he was trying, in his own awkward way, to wake her up, but she doubted it. Ahadiel might be an innocent – in the way only a being devoid of free will could be considered innocent – but he wasn’t naive.

  What to do? Fake sleep and ignore this ever happened? Or confront him and accept whatever consequences might follow?

  Consequences.

  Even as her body hummed with awareness under his touch, flushed with the heat of desire, she couldn’t forget that, for him, she literally embodied temptation. For that reason alone she should know better than to let this continue.

  It was always about the balance: for every gain, a loss.

  Ahadiel slid his hands lower, more boldly this time, and he circled the curve of her hip, fingers splayed along her bottom. When his touch strayed towards the juncture of her thighs, her breath ca
ught on a little gasp.

  Prima looked up to find Ahadiel watching her, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “You knew I was awake.”

  “True,” he admitted. “I wanted to see if you would tell me to stop.”

  “And if I had?”

  “I’d stop.”

  She shifted upwards along his chest until they were eye to eye. “This is a bad idea . . . and I think it’s only fair to tell you that I have very little self-control. Comes with the genes, I imagine.” She hated the breathless pitch of her voice; even to her own ears, she sounded desperate. Weak. “I was counting on you to be the smart and strong one here.”

  When he brought his hands up to her face, brushing back her hair, she wondered if he’d heard a word she’d just said. “Ahadiel, I think you—”

  “Do you fear change?”

  His voice sounded deeper, rougher than usual, and when his finger followed the line of her jaw downwards along the curve of her throat, Prima went very still.

  A flick of his finger, as if at an annoying insect, and his clawlike nail would permanently take care of this problem and end her life. Goodbye, evil temptress.

  “I don’t know.” Her mouth felt dry. “Maybe. Do you?”

  “I’ve never been afraid of anything before.”

  This close, she could see the striated colours of his irises, the reflection of her face in his pupils. “Fear has its advantages. It keeps you from being stupid.”

  “Fear can also hold you back,” he pointed out. “This isn’t what you think. I want you to understand that I don’t . . . It’s not a need. I only want to know why. Why does it happen? What it is about humans, that my brothers and sisters willingly fall from grace to be with them?”

  “I’m not human,” she reminded him.

  “You live among them, as one of them. I don’t.”

  His touch had grown more confident, yet still felt oddly restless. It was as if once he’d started, he wasn’t sure how to proceed, but still couldn’t stop himself.

  “I’m more than willing to help you flirt with the dark side, Ahadiel, but now’s not really a good time for experimenting . . . and it’s nearly dawn. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you’ve got a smiting or two on the schedule today.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.” He made no move to release his hold on her, much less get up and walk away. “I’ve thought of little else.”

  Prima sensed he was trying to tell her something important, but didn’t know how – and then the realization hit with an uncomfortable clarity. What he’d just said about having never known fear before, the admission that he’d been thinking of the coming fight with two dangerous foes. It was so obvious she should have seen it coming.

  In a short while, if things went wrong, one of them, or both of them, would be gone for ever. What he couldn’t find the words for, what he wanted her to see, was his fear of loss. Especially a fear of losing something he had yet to experience.

  “A little while ago, you told me that Azrael had ordered you to do whatever was necessary to find your brother. You chose to help me.” She put a slight emphasis on the word “chose”. “Maybe you’ve made a few other choices before that, and I’m not sure you—”

  “I know.” He looked away from her, and briefly squeezed his eyes shut as he tipped his head back against the wall. “I know.”

  In that moment, she hated Azrael more than ever. Not that he’d give a damn about her feelings. He was the Angel of Death; everybody loathed him.

  Prima was trying to decide what to do next when Ahadiel decided for her and kissed her. At first, she was too startled to respond. As he continued exploring her lips with frank curiosity, she was surprised all over again: he might be inexperienced, but he certainly knew how to kiss.

  When he’d tapped into the Spark, he’d apparently picked up a little something else besides an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Hodag.

  His kisses gradually grew more insistent, impatient, and when his tongue touched hers, the last shreds of her resistance and worry vanished, and she kissed him back. Ahadiel made a purely male sound of appreciation, and those restless hands closed firmly on her hips, pulling her hard against him.

  Still not enough. Prima straddled his lap, knees on either side of his thighs, and took his face in her hands. She guided his mouth first to that sensitive little spot behind her ear, then urged him further downwards. His skin felt hot and smooth in her hands. What she wanted, more than anything, was to feel all that inhumanly smooth, heated skin against every inch of her own.

  “I like the way you smell,” Ahadiel murmured against her throat, his breath hot. “And taste.”

  Considering that for thousands of years he’d done little else but hunt with a predatory single-mindedness, his words should’ve scared her silly rather than excited her. That he’d just slipped a hand beneath her sweater, fingers brushing along her abdomen, below her breast, wasn’t exactly helping her keep a clear head, either.

  “You said you wanted to know why,” Prima began, then stopped, taking a quick breath as his thumb found her nipple. “Well . . . this is why.”

  Ahadiel caressed her breast, gauging her reactions, and she let her head fall back, eyes closing, as the sensations washed over, tightening her need to an edge that was almost painful. Then, impatient for more, she grabbed the hem of her sweater and pulled it off, leaving her completely bare to his gaze.

  One clear advantage of immortality: she never had to wear a bra.

  When she arched her back, invitingly, Ahadiel didn’t hesitate. He slid the palms of his hands up along her belly, then covered her breasts, squeezing lightly.

  “Sometimes, it starts out almost like hate,” she whispered, watching him play with her, drawing the tips of her breasts into sharp, tight peaks. When he circled the pale centre with the tip of his nail, careful to leave no mark, she nearly lost it. After a moment, she continued in a voice less steady than before. “You resent humans, yet you want what they have, even if it means you lose everything. They’re temptation with a capital T, and the sex—”

  His kissed her nipple, then teased it with his tongue. Pleasure rolled her under, with such heated intensity she forgot for a moment where she was, what was at stake, even why she’d wanted him to stop in the first place.

  It wasn’t fair, distracting her like this. Then again, he’d always been a fast learner.

  With an effort, she gathered her scattered thoughts. “To an angel, sex is like a drug. If you go there, you’ll only want more. Once you’ve held in your hands that power to create, you can’t go back. Ever.”

  At that, he glanced up. “Do you want me to stop?”

  Absolutely not. To her shame, she hoped he wouldn’t. He was halfway down the wrong road already, at the point where it would be as easy to go the rest of the way as it would be to turn back.

  Shag an angel, save the world.

  Too bad it was wholly selfish and wrong – and probably playing right into Azrael’s plans. “Do you want to stop?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe I need to make my point more clearly.”

  She kissed him, hard, tongue plundering his mouth as she pushed his shirt up so that nothing separated her skin from his. Ahadiel rocked his hips in response, drawing a low groan from both of them. She gave back what he’d given her in pleasure, caressing his belly, teasing his nipples with her tongue. But when he grabbed her hand and pulled it down over his groin, she broke off, leaning back as she stared at him.

  “You’re not human,” Ahadiel said, after a moment.

  To her surprise, his breathing sounded a little faster than normal. Not nearly as uneven and rapid as her own, but a small, and not entirely nice, part of her was satisfied with the effect she had on him.

  “No, but I don’t think that’ll make much of a difference.”

  His gaze dropped to her bare breasts, and she didn’t need to know how to read minds to guess what he wanted. Not when it was what she wanted as well. Then
he looked up, head cocked to one side, and murmured, “It’s dawn.”

  The moment between them vanished. One second, it was all heat and dangerous desire, but the next . . . nothing. It was as if a giant fist of self-control had closed over that flaring lust and need, and smothered it.

  Prima would’ve been much more impressed with the speed – and inhuman ease – at which he’d switched his focus, if not for the fact that he’d left her so sexually frustrated she wanted to smash something.

  “Right,” she said, reaching for her sweater. “Work to do. Guardians to rescue. Heads to bust, and—”

  “A world to save,” he finished.

  She eyed him with suspicion as she finished pulling on her coat and hat, taking in the small smile, the arched brow. “Damn, son. I believe you just made another joke. It’s getting to be a habit.”

  In response, Ahadiel held out his hand.

  Prima sighed. “Do we have to?”

  “We do.”

  This time, it felt as if she – and the substation – were stretched and bulging like a soap bubble. Then the bubble popped, and she and Ahadiel stood at the back of the Walmart again, by the smashed truck, surrounded by cops on one side of the crimescene tape and a small crowd of curious bystanders on the other.

  It was all she could do not to gasp, even as Ahadiel kept her on her feet. A second of panicked disorientation, then the realization that there were no cops screaming or shooting at her.

  Ah, the invisible thing! She liked this much more than angelic modes of relocation. Being invisible was fun, and she couldn’t do it nearly this well.

  Ahadiel squeezed her hand, but it was a warning not to let go.

  Calmer now, if still a little wobbly, she could hear what the cops were saying.

  “. . . hell if I know what happened,” said a youngish cop built like a linebacker, his dark hair military short. “Maybe it was aliens.”

  Prima laughed then quickly muffled it with a hand over her mouth – but not quickly enough.

  The stocky cop looked back towards her. “You hear that?”

  His companion, a tall, thin man in his fifties, said, “What?”