by Cynthia Eden
“The chains bit into you here.” His thumb slid over the dark red line that still marked her wrist. He caught her other hand and traced the similar mark. “And here.”
Nicole swallowed. “Yes.”
“He had you chained in one of those crypts. The juicy steak to bait the trap.”
At least someone seemed to understand what Carlos had planned. “Keenan won’t listen to me. He’s the one in danger right now, and—”
“And here,” he kept talking, seeming to roll right over her words. “This is where you made the first break in your wrist when you realized you had to get out ... in order to save Keenan.”
She inclined her head toward him. “The first break is always the hardest, right?” She tried to sound flippant.
His lips hitched up a bit. “Bet you damn near shattered your bones to break loose. That’s why that college kid was sleeping near Laveau’s vault, eh? You needed a drink.” He still had her hands and didn’t seem to be showing signs of letting go. “I’m guessing you still need a drink. It takes a lot to overcome fire and broken bones.”
Yes, it did. “I’ll find a snack.”
“You sound so tough, but the words don’t really suit you, schoolteacher.”
What? He thought schoolteachers weren’t tough? Had the guy ever been in a school?
“Maybe after you have your bite, you’ll be able to think better. Then you’ll realize what’s really going on here.”
Jerk. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s happening? If you know why Keenan’s suddenly pushing me away, then just say—”
“He thinks he’s keeping you safe.”
“Bullshit.” She’d call it just as she saw it. “I think it’s more likely he decided to feed me to the wolves.” Or to the coyotes.
Sam shook his head. “Think about the dead girl. How did she die?”
“I don’t know! She came at Keenan. They hit. His hand shoved between her jaws, and she fell over.” Dead.
“One touch,” Sam murmured.
Her heart beat faster. “You’re not saying ...”
“He told you how it was for death angels, right? To take the soul, you just have to touch.”
“He’s touched me.” Plenty of times and in plenty of ways. Sam was lying to her, had to be.
“There’s something else you should know.” He paused. “Angels, even fallen angels, can’t lie. So when I tell you something, trust me.”
She wouldn’t trust the guy as far as she could throw his shadow-winged self. “Keenan lost his powers when he fell.”
“No, he just forgot them.”
Uh, what?
“Falling isn’t easy.” His thumbs stroked her wrists. She tried to yank away but he wouldn’t let her go. “Once you get here, you’re lucky if you can even remember your own name.”
Keenan hadn’t remembered, not at first. He’d told her that.
“Then the memories start to filter back. When they first come, you think you have to be batshit crazy. But then ... then you start to know.”
Right. He’d fallen. Been there, done that. So, of course, Sam could speak from experience.
“You start to know,” he said again, “and then, slowly, the powers come back.”
Her breath seemed to be freezing in her chest. “You’re telling me that Keenan can kill with a touch.” Her gaze fell to their hands. “That you can.” Then why are you touching me?
“If killing that way was what I wanted ...” His eyes glinted. “Yes.”
Good thing he didn’t seem to want it then.
“Sometimes the powers are locked deep inside, and you have to chip away at the locked box to get them out.”
Her stomach started to knot.
“Sometimes, you just need the right key to open that box.” His smile stretched. “You were a wonderful key.”
If he weren’t holding her hands in that unbreakable grip, she would have punched him then. Not the sweet move of a schoolteacher, but the hard right hook of a vamp who’d learned to fight dirty. “You’ve been using me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just how did Mike find out where we were hiding?”
His smile dimmed a bit. “You think I led him to you?”
The hard suspicion in her gut said yes. “Didn’t you?”
His hold became harder. “I’m the one who helped Keenan find you in that cemetery.”
She realized he hadn’t answered her. Like Keenan, the guy couldn’t say just yes or no. “Angels can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean they have to tell the complete truth, right?” Cause there was a difference. “They can avoid answering the question or they can—they can just twist their words, twist the truth.”
He nodded. “I knew the first time I saw you that you’d be the key to making Keenan break.”
He’s getting lost in you. “I don’t want him to break.”
“Really? Don’t you want a little vengeance? Come on ...” His voice lowered. “It’s just us. Keenan’s upstairs, hating the world. He won’t know what you say.”
“Let go of my hands.”
He didn’t let go. “I mean, if he’d just moved faster, just touched that vamp who attacked you that night faster, you’d still have your nice, picket-fence life. Hell, maybe you’d even have met your prince charming and be getting ready to settle down.”
Her claws were coming out.
“But he didn’t move fast enough, did he? Because of him, you suffered and you changed and you lost everything you held dear.”
She would have lost it anyway. No matter what Keenan had done, there wouldn’t have been a prince charming or a picket fence for her. “I don’t want vengeance.”
He laughed. “Good thing vamps can lie, huh?” Finally, he dropped her hands, but he still stood between her and the door. “In order to stir his powers,” he said, “Keenan needed to let his emotions go. Angels don’t feel emotions, did you know that?”
She didn’t answer.
“So when they fall, they get slapped with them. The emotions are what strengthens us here, and what weakens us.” His head cocked. “To get Keenan to conjure and control his fire, he needed rage. He got that rage when your life was threatened.”
And in order for him to kill ...
“That’s right.” Sam’s eyes gleamed. “He just had to feel the killing fury. He needed to want to kill. When Big Mike attacked you ...” A soft laugh. “The only thing Keenan wanted was to kill.”
“Good for you.” She glared at the jerk. “You let the tiger out of his cage.”
“No, I let the Fallen loose. Or, rather, you did.”
“Because you set us up!” Everything—was it just a game to him? And why did it matter? “No wonder Keenan didn’t want me close. If he touches me, he’ll kill me.”
That shouldn’t have made her feel relieved. It should have terrified her. Made her shove Sam aside and haul ass for the door. But, no, she was there thinking ... He wants me to leave so he can’t hurt me.
Figured. That was her angel. No, her Fallen.
“He won’t kill you.”
She blinked. Sam sounded real sure of that.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Sam exhaled on a hard sigh. “I said he kills because when he touches, he wants to give death. When he touches you ...” One brow rose. “I bet death is the last thing he’s thinking about.”
Her teeth were burning. “I ... have to go.”
“To get blood?” He smiled at her. “Why go out? You can dine right here.”
“Keenan wasn’t exactly offering—”
“I am.”
That shocked her. “You’d trust me? At your throat?” Oh, no, wait, this game she understood. “When I touch you, will you kill me?” Because he was Fallen, just like Keenan. Only maybe he could kill at will. He’d been on the human plane longer, so perhaps he’d gotten total control over all his powers.
He smiled at her. “I promise not to kill if you promise not to bite too hard.”
Her eyes measured him. “Are you hitting on me?” Impossible. No
way.
He moved in a blur—didn’t he always?—and grabbed her hand once more. “You’re still living.”
Her heart slammed into her chest.
“Trouble’s coming after us. Those coyotes will be howling at the door soon. If you’re going to listen to Keenan and run out of here ... which, by the way, I don’t recommend because they’ll just follow you and hunt you down eventually, so that idea pretty much fucking sucks ...”
Uh, yeah, it did.
“Unless you’re leaving tonight,” he said, “you need to get strong, and you need to get strong fast.”
His blood. She inhaled and caught his scent. She could hear the thunder of his blood. So close. Her tongue slipped over the edge of a fang. “Most Other ... they think it’s an insult to get bitten.” Especially the shifters. She’d heard those guys would rather die than get bit.
“I’m not most Other.” His gaze burned her. “Besides, I know there’s pleasure as well as pain in the bite—that’s a mix I rather like.”
He was offering. She needed the blood. Nicole pushed up onto her toes and pressed her lips against his throat.
If the coyotes were coming, and she didn’t doubt that part of his story, then she wouldn’t have time to find other prey. Not that she’d even been particularly good at finding prey to begin with.
Her fangs scraped his skin.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “Have a taste.”
Her teeth pressed—
“What the hell are you doing?”
She spun around, but didn’t go far. Sam had her clasped tightly to him, his arm a steel band around her waist.
Keenan thundered down the stairs, his eyes flashing black, then blue, as he raced toward them. “Get your hands off her! What are you thinking? You could kill her!”
Sam didn’t let her go. “Only if death was what I wanted.” She felt his shrug. “I don’t want death for her.”
“Let her go.”
“She’s holding me.”
Oh, crap, she was. Her hands were still on him. She dropped them instantly. “Keenan, it’s okay, I was just going to—”
“Have a bite,” Sam finished and Keenan jumped down to the landing. “After all, you left her weak, Fallen. Burned, broken, weak. What did you expect her to do?”
Keenan staggered to a stop less than a foot away. His hand lifted, then his fingers clenched into a fist. “Nicole, get away from him. You can’t trust him. He’ll turn on you in an instant.”
Like that was something she didn’t know.
“You want her, then take her.” Sam’s voice was mocking. “Touch her, take her, if you think you’re strong enough.”
Oh, so that was what this was about. Nicole jabbed out with her elbow, as hard as she could. Sam’s grip loosened, just a bit, and she sprang away from him. She didn’t hurry toward Keenan, but rather backed away from them both. “She doesn’t need taking by anyone,” Nicole said clearly.
But the two fallen angels were too busy glaring at each other to listen to her.
“Don’t ever touch her again,” Keenan ordered.
“I don’t touch her ... you don’t touch her ... that’s gonna be one lonely vampire.”
Keenan growled.
“Just back off,” she snapped right back at him. “You’re the one who told me to leave, remember?”
His head inclined in a tight nod.
“Dammit, she needs blood.” Sam threw his hands into the air. “Look at her. Look.”
Keenan’s gaze darted to her. She saw the hunger in his eyes. The need. The fear.
“If you’re not gonna help her, I will.” Sam reached for her.
“No,” Nicole said, her voice firm. She’d been planning to pull back even before Keenan came flying down those stairs. “I’ll find another source.”
Keenan’s jaw tightened and she caught the flash of fury in his gaze.
So did Sam. “Don’t like that, do you? Makes you jealous.” His voice lowered. “Those damn emotions. They’re real bitches, aren’t they?”
Keenan ignored him. “I won’t kill you,” he told her.
Sam laughed. “Isn’t that what this whole mess has always been about? You ... killing her.”
Keenan didn’t glance back at him. “If you leave now, you’ll have a good headstart, sweet. I’ll make sure the coyotes don’t follow you.”
“Because it’s okay to kill them,” Sam said, “but not her?”
Keenan’s eyes narrowed. “Go, Nicole.”
The guy was really throwing her out the door. Fine. She spun away, took two steps and locked her fingers around the doorknob.
“Thank you.”
His whisper stopped her cold. “For what? Leaving you?” So that he’d have to fight a vicious battle without her?
But Keenan didn’t say anything else. Damn him. Nicole looked over her shoulder, glaring. “For what?”
“Life.” He inclined his head. “Now I understand why you fought so hard.”
No, no, he was not bringing that up to her—
“Some things are worth fighting for.”
He turned away and began to march back up the stairs.
“He can’t kill you.” Intensity hardened Sam’s voice.
Nicole’s tongue swiped over her lips even as her fingers tightened around that doorknob. “Th-that’s not what Az said.”
“Az is a dick.”
So was he. “Az said that if ... if Keenan killed me ...” And Keenan was halfway up the stairs now. His shoulders up. His head high. Couldn’t he have looked a little depressed? “Az said if Keenan killed me, he could go back.”
She turned the knob and opened the door.
Sam slammed it closed instantly. “What?” Lethally soft and vibrating with fury.
“You heard me.” Nicole didn’t doubt that for a moment. “Keenan can go back. He can get his life back. I just have to die.”
“There are no do-overs. Az knows that. He can’t bullshit his way through—”
“I don’t think he was bullshitting.” She wasn’t going to run after Keenan even though it hurt to watch him walk away. “Now get out of my way, Sam.”
He blinked.
“Out of my way.”
“You’d leave him?” He edged away but watched her with curiosity in his eyes. “I ... didn’t count on that.”
She bared her fangs. “Maybe I finally realized it was time to save my own skin.” She yanked open the door. The night waited for her. Dark and heavy.
She wouldn’t look back. Death was the only thing that waited behind her. She’d never wanted death.
Not when the doctor told her that the same cancer that had killer her mother was slowly destroying her own body.
Not when that vamp had slammed her onto the ground in that alley.
No, she’d never wanted death.
But she sure wanted her angel. She could almost feel his touch.
A touch that would kill.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Keenan didn’t turn when Sam burst into the room. His gaze was on the street below him. On Nicole. She moved so quickly through the shadows that he could barely keep track of her. “If she stayed here, she would’ve been dead by dawn.” Because he was a greedy bastard, and he wanted to touch. So badly.
“So you send her out alone? That was your genius plan?”
“No. My genius plan ...” Nicole was turning the corner, heading out of sight now. He swallowed. “My plan is to track the coyotes before they track us and to kill them. Then Nicole won’t have to worry.” He’d thought she’d stay safe if he was with her, watching her back every moment.
But that plan was too risky. Because when he was close ...
Touch. Take.
Human needs and emotions were, indeed, a bitch.
“It’s all because you think you can’t touch her, right?”
The question didn’t need answering.
Sam sighed. “I told you. You have to want to kill. When you touch her, you’re just go
nna be wanting to screw.”
The always eloquent Sam.
“You don’t believe me? You know we can’t lie!”
Such a crock. Now Keenan did look Sam’s way. “Why bother to lie when the truth can be just as deceiving?” Sure, pretty it up, make the truth look righteous, but in the end, it was just as twisted.
“Fine. You don’t believe me. Then go find some human. Touch away. See if you kill or not.”
Keenan allowed himself a smile. “Actually, that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.” Then he leapt off the balcony. For an instant, he felt the whip of the wind, the roll of wings, then his feet slammed into the ground. His knees barely buckled.
He began to walk slowly down the street. No rush—he knew just where to find his prey.
The wind pushed around him. “You’re bullshitting me, right?” Sam wanted to know as he stepped to Keenan’s side.
“No.”
“You’re just gonna pick some random mortal—”
“Not random.” Not random at all, but then, he’d long ago learned that nothing in this world was random. There was always a plan in place.
Sam whistled and kept perfect pace with him. “Going for some revenge, are you?”
He slanted a hard look Sam’s way. “Worried?”
The faint lines around Sam’s eyes tightened. “Sometimes when folks get a touch of power, it’s a little too much for them to handle. Too much temptation.”
“I’ve had that.” Far too much. He rounded the corner, caught Nicole’s scent, and stumbled, just a moment.
But then he strode faster. The streets were crowded here, thick with humans already drunk and with Other hiding in plain sight. And his prey.
Pete. Tattooed, redheaded, and still alive. For now.
“Get lost, Sam.”
But the other Fallen just grabbed his arm. “No.”
So now the Fallen had a conscience?
“The guy told you everything he knew.” A line appeared between Sam’s brows. “Why go after him again?”
“Because if I don’t stop him, he’ll be coming after me.”
“What?”
Keenan brushed him aside. “I’m not the only one who wants vengeance.” Sometimes, it was easy to understand the motives of men. Perhaps he was finally getting a handle on these emotions after all.