by Cynthia Eden
“We’re not your enemies!” Jade said, the words bursting from her. She reached for the small black bag she’d knotted at her hip. “We just . . . we need your help.”
“Sí, everyone needs something.”
Az took the bag from her and tossed it to Mateo. The witch caught it with one hand. “Had to bleed for these, didn’t you?” Mateo asked.
“It was a small price to pay.”
Mateo laughed. “So different now, aren’t you? Not like the angel I met before.”
Jade glanced between them.
“She thinks she knows you,” Mateo said to Az. “Thinks that she can trust you to be there for her in the end.”
Yeah, she was in the room. “She does,” Jade snapped.
Mateo’s dark eyes found hers. “But does she know that what you want the most in this world . . . is to leave this place? That you want to get away from the needs and lusts and emotions that swamp humans?”
Jade wouldn’t look away from Mateo. “I know I can count on Az.” She could. No doubt. From the first moment, when he’d come charging in to save her . . . no doubt.
No one had ever tried to save her before Az.
“He ruled in heaven, now he kills for you on earth.”
Wait, ruled?
“But death has always been his business,” Mateo continued, voice rolling lightly. “It is what he does best.”
Anger stirred inside of her. “He’s more than death.”
Mateo nodded. “And you . . . you are more than human.”
And there they went again. Was more demon talk coming?
Mateo opened the bag and pulled out the claws. His fingers traced over the razor-sharp edges. “So you think you’ll be able to take out the earthbound angel with these?”
Az stalked forward with a ripple of muscle and menace. “I think I’ll be able to take out the psycho killer on our trail.”
“Sammael’s woman was earthbound, too. When one form ended, she was just born again.”
Jade stepped to the edge of that table. The mirror’s surface wasn’t gleaming now. It was pitch black. “Brandt isn’t an angel.” More like a devil.
Mateo shook his head. “He has the blood. You need to know that killing his human form may just unleash something. . . else.”
What? “You’re saying we can’t kill him?” Not the news she wanted. I’ll never be free.
Mateo placed the claws on his mirror. “I’m saying you both might not survive the battle that comes.”
She put her fingers on the mirror and was shocked by its icy feel. “Is that what you’ve seen?”
He slowly glanced up at her. “To know what I see, you have to pay a price.”
Jade swallowed as fear trickled through her. His stare . . . how could dark eyes seem to blaze?
“I’ll pay,” Az said immediately.
“You can only see my future.” Jade spoke quickly, too quickly. “You can’t know about Az because he’s—”
“I’m not some dime store witch.” Power vibrated in Mateo’s words and in the very air around her. “I can see beyond earth, beyond heaven and hell. When I call, the dead answer me.”
Um, right. She slanted a glance at Az.
“But it’s not his payment I want first.” Mateo’s voice was calmer now, a good thing, or good until he said, “It’s yours.”
“No.” Az grabbed her hand and yanked it off the mirror. “I’m the one who’ll pay. Tell me what you want. Tell me the price for those bullets and—”
“You have no wings to trade me. I won’t be getting any Angel Dust from you.” He shrugged. “It’s a pity. An angel’s wings contain such powerful magic. They can bind just about anyone.”
This was the guy who was supposed to help them? No wonder Az had given her so many warnings about him. And, as she watched, the tattoos on his head seemed to alter, just a little. As if they’d just moved a few inches.
He smiled at her. “Now are you ready to pay my price?”
The claws waited on the mirror. “What do you want?”
“A debt.”
Uh, huh. “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific than that.”
But he shook his head. “Not the way it works. I do this for you, and you promise that when I come to call on you in the future, you’ll do what I want, no questions asked.”
Did she look insane? She must if he thought she’d offer him anything.
“No deal,” Az growled.
“Then I can’t help you.”
“You mean you won’t.” Now Az slapped his hand down on the mirror. “But what you don’t understand is that I’m not leaving here without those bullets.”
The mirror’s surface began to swirl beneath Az’s hand. “Az . . .” Jade began.
“I’ll bleed for you,” Az told him. “I’ll give you a pound of flesh, if that’s what you want. I’ll agree to be in your debt, but you leave her out of this.”
“Why?” Mateo seemed honestly confused. “This is all about her.”
And it was. Her battle. Her fight. Her life. So why should Az be the one to sacrifice?
“But if you’re truly willing to offer up all that you have,” Mateo murmured to Az, “then I might be willing to—”
“No!” The denial burst from her. Shit, shit, shit . . . “This isn’t gonna be you wanting my firstborn, is it? Because that’s not happening.”
Mateo’s gaze dipped to her stomach. That ghost of a grin curved his lips once more. “I do wonder what the child will be like.”
In a flash, Az had the knife at Mateo’s throat. “Cut the game, Mateo.” A trickle of blood slid down the witch’s throat. “Help us or—”
“Or you slice me open? Why use a blade when you can kill me with your hand?”
“Because I don’t want you dead. I just want you to bleed.” He tossed the knife and shoved Mateo’s head over that swirling mirror. Drops of blood fell on the glass. “Tell me what you see!”
Clouds formed in the glass. Moving faster. Faster. But Mateo just laughed. “I see you dying at Brandt’s hands. His claws tear you apart.” He turned his head and met Az’s stare. “Because you don’t have any fucking brimstone bullets.”
That wasn’t happening. “I’ll do it,” Jade said immediately.
Az spun around. “No, Jade—”
“Too late.” A faint charge lit the air. A burst of sparks. “There’s no going back now.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. “Just give us the bullets.”
“The deal’s made,” Mateo said with satisfaction.
“Then unmake it,” came Az’s furious order, “or I’ll make sure you’re never around to collect on the debt.”
“But you’re going to try that anyway,” Mateo said. “You’re going to try and destroy everyone.”
No, he was wrong. Az wouldn’t do that.
“I’ve seen the future, Azrael. I know why that witch gave you up to the hunters months ago. I know why the world should fear you.” The faint lines around Mateo’s eyes deepened even as his tattoos continued to subtly shift. “You were the ruler of the Death Angels, and you’re going to bring hell to earth.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“No, he’s not.” Jade’s voice was confident and held no fear. “I don’t know what you think you saw, buddy, but you’re wrong. Az has done nothing but help me from the moment we met.”
“He’s tried to help himself.” At Mateo’s flat words, Az locked his back teeth. “Stepping into that alley that first night had nothing to do with you and everything to do with Az’s need for violence.”
Jade shook her head. “You’re wrong. He saved me—”
“Az likes violence.” A pause. “Sex and violence, haven’t you noticed? Or maybe he just likes the sex more with you.”
“Az has never hurt me!”
The witch was about to push too far. “Create the bullets,” Az ordered. Jade had made a mistake in offering a debt to the guy, but Az could take care of that for her. He’d make sure she didn�
�t have to sacrifice anything.
Mateo liked sacrifices too much.
“Once he realized you were human, Az knew he could use you.” Mateo’s voice was mild. The guy needed to shut up.
Az lunged forward and grabbed Mateo’s arm. “The bullets.”
Mateo smirked at him. “I’m not afraid of you.”
He should be.
“Az isn’t using me!” Jade was still defending him. Why did that make him feel so . . . guilty?
“Sí, he is. Ask him.”
Az shoved the witch away from him. He couldn’t kill Mateo, at least, not until he’d gotten the bullets.
A grim smile lifted Mateo’s mouth as he studied Az. “After all,” he said, “we all know angels can’t lie.”
“I don’t need to ask him!” Jade’s green eyes flashed fury as her dark hair tumbled wildly over her shoulders. “What could he possibly be using me for? I’m the one who needs him! He’s saving my ass and—”
“And he thought you were his ticket back to heaven.”
The witch really did see too much.
“Helping a human, helping one of the favored . . .” Mateo stroked his throat. “That was supposed to fast-pass you back upstairs, right, Azrael?”
“You seem to have all the answers,” Az snarled at him. “So why even ask?”
“Because she needs to see you for what you are.” Mateo’s face twisted with anger. “She’s blinded by you. She doesn’t get that you are—”
“Enough talk.” Jade’s voice cut right through his raging words. Az glanced at her, and did a double take. Jade had snatched up the knife from Mateo’s table, and she’d just shoved the tip against the witch’s side. “We made the deal, now just do your part.”
Mateo’s mouth slackened in shock.
“It’s a magic knife, right?” She muttered. “Hell, isn’t everything magic these days? And I’m thinking if it can cut you, maybe it can even kill you, even if you are some super-powered caller.” She pushed the blade’s tip a bit deeper into Mateo’s flesh. “At the very least, I can make you hurt.”
Mateo’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t care what he is.” Surprise slipped into his eyes, but vanished almost instantly.
“I want him,” she said, “just as he is.”
Az rubbed his chest, aware of an ache that rested beneath the skin.
The witch searched her eyes. Then, after a moment, he inclined his head. “Wait outside. I’ll give you what you need.”
“You’d better.” Very slowly, she lowered the knife. “And stop the trash talk about Az, understand? I get it, you’re not a fan, but back the hell off.”
She was protecting him. Az stepped closer to her. He brushed back a lock of her dark hair. Her head turned toward him. “I don’t care, Az. Whatever the reason you came to me, I don’t care.”
But . . . but there was a flash of pain in her eyes.
He’s using you.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Come on.” They’d wait downstairs. He’d explain things to her.
“I need your blood, Fallen.” Mateo’s words stopped him.
And, of course, he did.
“You have to pay, too,” Mateo murmured. “So I’ll be taking that pound of flesh you offered.” A slight pause. “Good thing your kind heals so fast.”
But Az didn’t want Jade to watch him get sliced open. “You got spells protecting this place?” he asked Mateo.
“Always,” was the instant answer.
Exhaling, Az said, “Go downstairs, Jade. I’ll be there soon. Give me just a minute.”
She nodded and stepped away from him.
But before she left, he wanted her to understand . . . “I’m not going back.”
Her body tensed.
“I’m not using you as some trade-off for heaven.”
She turned toward him. Her hand lifted and touched the edge of his jaw. If he’d had one, the look in her eyes would have broken his heart.
But angels didn’t love.
Angels didn’t, but Fallen—
“Good,” she told him quietly as her hand slowly fell away, “because a trade with somebody like me—with all the things I’ve done—hell is more likely what you’d get in return.”
Then she was gone. The apartment door shut quietly behind her. Az realized his hands had clenched into fists.
“I guess it’s true.” Mateo came to stand in front of him. He held a knife loosely in his hands.
Az forced his hands to relax. “What is?”
“That every angel has a temptation.”
She wasn’t just a temptation.
“Maybe that’s the real challenge.” Mateo’s gaze was hooded. “Can you give her up? If you did, perhaps you’d get what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want.” What he wanted was heading down the stairs. He could hear the soft tread of her footsteps. “So just get to slicing and let’s hurry the hell up.” He had places to be. An angel to see.
A shifter to kill.
“If that’s what you want.” Then Mateo started cutting him. Az clenched his teeth, refusing to cry out as the witch carved into him. Mateo caught his blood in a cup, holding it close.
Az didn’t make a sound. He didn’t want Jade to see him like this, didn’t want her to hear his pain.
So he closed his eyes, ignored the hot slice of that knife, and thought of angels . . . and their deadly schemes.
She’d known he was too good to be true. Jade paced the dusty bottom floor of the warehouse, her arms folded over her breasts. That first night—she’d known that fate couldn’t be so kind to her.
“Using me,” she muttered, and so what? Hadn’t she been using him, too?
So why did the knowledge of Az’s true intentions make her heart hurt?
Because you know he doesn’t want to stay with you. You know that when this nightmare is over, Az will find a way to get what he wants most.
And what he wanted most just wasn’t her.
Dammit.
The guy wanted to go home.
How could a girl compete with heaven?
She glanced upstairs. She hadn’t heard so much as a peep of sound since she’d walked down to the first floor. That was weird, but—
“Help me . . .”
Jade tensed at the cry. Faint, drifting on the wind. She hurried to the warehouse door. Putting her ear against it, she listened.
“Help me . . .” A woman’s voice. Desperate. Louder. “Please, help me!”
Jade jerked back. She grabbed the handle of the door. Yanked.
The damn thing didn’t open.
The woman screamed, the cry high and full of pain.
Jade yanked harder on the door. It wouldn’t open. She ran toward the boarded-up windows. Pressing close, she squinted and could just make out the form of a woman huddled across the street. The woman was holding her stomach, weaving on her feet. And there was a trail of blood in her wake.
Oh, hell. “Az!” Jade yelled for him. “I need you!” Because she couldn’t just stand there and watch that woman die. Jade spun around. She needed something, something—the chair. She rushed for the old desk and chairs, and her hands closed around the nearest chair.
She dragged it with her and rammed it against the window. The glass shattered. The wood that had been nailed into place groaned.
The woman’s cries were getting weaker.
“Az!” Jade shouted again. “Help me!”
The wind howled in the apartment as the magic flared. Mateo was mixing Az’s blood and the hellhound claws, pounding them up and re-forming them with his powers.
No furnace was needed to cast these bullets—Mateo used his own firepower to burn and shape them.
The howling sounded like a thousand voices screaming in his head, and even with the fire spinning just feet away, Az felt a chill ice his skin.
Some magic could give even angels pause.
And this . . . the powers that Mateo called, they were damn dark.
Az was
glad that Jade was safely downstairs. He didn’t want this darkness touching her.
The wood cracked with a groan. Jade heaved the chair once more, and it flew through the shattered beams of wood. Then it was her turn to hurtle through the window. The woman wasn’t crying anymore. She’d slumped over on the ground, and she didn’t appear to be moving at all.
Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.
But Jade could smell the too-sweet scent of flowers, and that was supposed to mean that a Death Angel was close, right?
“Hold on!” Jade cried out as she raced across the street. “You’re not alone. It’s going to be okay.”
She fell to her knees by the woman. The blonde had turned away from her, sagging against the old brick building. Jade reached for her shoulder. “It’s going to—”
The illusion fell away. And that’s all it was, an illusion, one that couldn’t survive touch. Because Jade wasn’t clasping an injured woman’s shoulder. She was touching the hard strength of a man’s arm.
Her gaze lifted slowly, and she found herself caught in the too-bright stare of an angel bent on death.
“Demons aren’t the only ones who know how to use the power of glamour.” Bastion smiled at her. “Angels hide in plain sight all the time. Why do you think humans never see us?”
She could barely hear him over the mad pounding of her heart. Jade tried to jump to her feet and back away.
Too late. His hand flew out and caught hers. “I can’t let you get away,” he murmured. “Not this time.”
“Az!” She screamed his name as loud as she could, but even if he heard her, she knew he’d never make it to her in time.
Az . . .
He couldn’t hear a thing. Az stalked to the line of windows. The sunlight streamed in, but no warmth filled the room. A puff of chilled air appeared in front of his mouth every time he took a breath. Ice and evil liked to stay close.
He gazed out of the window. All of the nearby buildings were abandoned. His gaze trekked down. Then every muscle in his body locked.