by JL Madore
No matter how much he wanted to get away from this cluster fuck and inform their superiors they were in serious trouble, he couldn’t. Zander was his brother and superior. He believed in the system. Had to. It was the one thing that kept them going when things went dark.
Danel shook his head. “There’s shit hitting on all fronts. If you can’t focus on what’s happening, I will. Tanek’s death is tied to you. His body was delivered to you. The Cherub was snatched right in front of you, from your club, while looking for you. The fact that this human has you panting like a dog in heat is no coincidence.”
Kyrian cursed from somewhere behind him.
Danel continued. “Are you even aware of the storm that’s brewing around you?”
Zander stared at him like his neuropathways had misfired and nothing connected his mouth to his gray matter. “I’m a shit-ton more aware of what’s brewing than you. Researching ain’t the same as living it, Persian. For all you know about books and history, you don’t know shit about what I’m dealing with here.”
Danel studied the lustered hardwood and took a breath. When he raised his head, he met Zander’s glare with as much rationality as he could muster. “With everything going wrong, how about we scrub the woman and eliminate one problem.”
Zander’s head was shaking before he finished talking. “We can’t scrub her until the archangels figure out her vision. What if she’s walking down the sidewalk and hears a Djinn talk and starts screaming? Plus, the Shedim behind this knows where she lives. I want them destroyed before she goes back to her life. It’s not safe to send her back yet.”
“It’s not safe for you to be feeling her the way you do.”
Zander leaned heavy into his palms and pegged him with an icy glare. The four feet separating them wasn’t enough. “I’d stop commenting on my sex life if I were you.”
Danel grabbed the book off the table and read aloud the text they’d heard ten thousand times over the millennia. “The begotten of the fallen exist to serve and maintain the balance of the Choir.” He skimmed down the paragraph, blah, blah, we’re screwed. No choice. Blah, blah, “For if a male should ever cross the boundaries of the heart forbidden, the dead shall surge within, the darkness consuming the warrior’s soul, his grace lost e’ermore.”
A feminine gasp had them pivoting to the open doorway. The brunette was there, her mouth agape. “You’re forbidden to be with me? You could lose your soul?”
“Only if he cares about you,” Danel said, dropping the book back to the table. “If you were just a warm body for a quick fuck, he’d be fine.”
Her eyes widened further.
Zander looked like he wanted to snap his neck, but said nothing. What could he say? To say she meant more to him, proved his point. To say she meant nothing beyond a warm place to stow his cock insulted the woman he just had pressed beneath his hips.
“You’ll have to excuse Danel, sweetheart,” Kyrian said, shooting him a cool green glare. “Danel is far more successful with women when he’s naked. Once he starts flapping his big mouth, it all goes to hell.”
Danel scratched his jaw with his middle finger and looked at the human. Fresh from the shower, damp hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing jeans and a knit top, he could almost see the appeal. The woman had a Kate Middleton thing going on.
He stroked his goatee and offered his best impression of a polite smile. “Zander’s feelings certainly seem stronger than an urge to satisfy. That is dangerous. To him. To you. To all of us. I interrupted you because the scriptures speak of a deadly curse unlocking if a warrior loses himself to a woman. Until we know who or what has been manipulating things between you two, Zander needs to keep his distance.”
“Manipulating things?” she blinked.
Danel nodded. “I believe there may be a Darkworld spell or enthralling involved. The Shedim had you for days before we found you. You were drugged and out of it. You’re having side-effects none of us can explain.”
Zander strode to the doorway the muscles in his shoulders and back threatening to bust the seams of his black T. “Danel can postulate till he’s blue in the balls, but he’s guessing. I’m not under any spell.”
“Maybe,” Danel said, “but can you be sure you’re not being manipulated? It’s happened before.”
“Fuck you, Danel,” Zander growled.
“I’m just saying that until we find out for sure where those cuffs came from and what they did to her, you two need to stop with the heated looks.”
Zander’s eyes narrowed. “Or what? You threatening me?”
Danel’s gut twisted. “If you force me to it, I’ll go to the suits to request your removal as garrison commander. At least until you’ve got your head on straight.”
The air snapped with a sudden electrical current, Zander’s beast dangerously close to the surface. “You’d go to those totalitarian assholes and put me under a microscope? After having each other’s backs for millennia?”
Danel met Zander chest to chest. “I’m trying to do the right thing for the entire squad, Zandros. Your duty to Tanek and this garrison supersedes any itch you need scratched. It’s about damned time, someone reminded you of that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Zander sat in his club office downstairs, music pounding at steady thrum from his day staff on the other side of the wall. He closed the video file of the Cherub’s kidnapping. He’d read through the reports laid out before him, reviewed the intel, and still, there were more questions than answers. Why would a member of the Cherubim, keepers of the lives of man, come to his club looking for him? What alloy dissected a Nephilim and blocked his ability to heal? Who got inside his building to dump Tanek’s body into the elevator? Why was he the target?
With hours yet until sundown he sat spinning his wheels. There was no point hitting the streets until nightfall when the Darkworld came to life. The squad wanted blood. Rightly so. They would find the asshole who killed Tanek and exact lethal justice.
He rubbed the hollow ache in his chest. Tanek had been the living, breathing heart of their garrison for forever. Now, all eyes were on him to fill those boots, but damn, he doubted he’d ever live up to his brother’s greatness.
The hum in his head buzzed at a deafening level—an invasive hornet colony nesting in his skull. He scrubbed his hands over his face and exhaled. Enough with this. His men expected him to pull up his big-boy pants and lead them in the years and centuries and millennia ahead. Millennia.
His gaze ping-ponged around the charcoal-grey office interior from his desk to Kyrian’s desk, to Austin sitting with her laptop on the leather sofa, to the brass practice-cage they used to audition new dancers. That cage set off an entirely new set of images in his mind.
Damn. Austin pushed his control to its limit and then one inch further. An unforgettable woman who had to be forgotten.
“Zander? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, cowgirl. Why do you ask?”
“The way you’re beatin’ your keyboard feels like you’re fixin’ to strangle someone.”
“Nothing I can do about that I’m afraid.” He shifted in his chair and repositioned trying to focus. How did Tanek keep all these balls in the air? He never seemed crushed beneath his position’s weight. The guy had focus and drive Zander could only hope to match.
Hitting the keyboard, he opened the file Phoenix and Seth gave him last night. As Prince of Powers, Auriel was the most violent of the archangels. When he found out the missing female was a Cherub he would—
A knock at the door tore a growl from his chest. “What?”
Colin popped his green mohawked head in the door a crack. “Sorry. Bad time?”
Zander exhaled and waved the kid in. “Not your fault. What’s up?”
He held out a folded piece of paper. “The grocer expected a cheque this morning. I called up, but nobody answered.”
Zander flipped open the purchase order, but nothing on the page registered. “Yeah, it’s been one hell of a day. Sorry t
he shit landed on your shoulder, buddy.”
Colin shrugged, biting the ring pierced through his lip.
Zander rested his elbows on his desk recognizing the kid’s tell. “Okay, let’s hear it. What’s on your mind?” When he hesitated, Zander inhaled and got a lungful of anxiety. “Colin? Do you need a private word? Is everything cool—”
He waved away the concern and squared off as if he were facing the firing squad. “I’m not saying you and Kyrian don’t do a great job with this place, you do. Both of you. Nobody thinks otherwise, don’t think that, but there are girls who want to switch shifts, applications piling up for the open dancer position, and the last liquor order was fucked. Kyrian had to spend the afternoon re-inventorying the main bar and the two cooler bars. Obviously, the two of you have more important things on your minds right now but . . .”
Zander leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers. “But?”
“Uh, Jules and I got talking.” He swallowed and rubbed his palms on his camo pants. “It’s just, we thought with everything that’s happened . . .”
“For fuck’s sake, Colin, spit it out.” The kid stiffened and Zander cursed. “I’m sorry, buddy. Just tell me. What’s doing?”
“Jules and I want to step up and take care of club business. Jules will handle the front of the house and I’ll take charge of the back. It’ll free you and Kyrian up for more important stuff and well, yeah, that’s about it.”
Zander leaned back and let that sink in. Now that he was a commander, the idea of handing off schedules, ordering, and payroll was appealing, but— “Kyrian and I would want to be hands on. We’d handle the drop-ins and would have our noses in all things Otherworld.”
“Absolutely.”
“If things went south, it would be your asses on the line.”
Colin laughed. “I can’t speak for Jules’s ass, but mine has been in tougher situations than you two ripping me a new one.”
That it had. “Okay, sounds good in theory. I’ll think on it and get back to you.” He held up his fist for a knuckle bump and waited for the door to close behind him. Handing off club management would lighten his load that’s for damn sure. Paperwork wasn’t—
Shiiit. He hadn’t prepared an end of week report for the archangels. He needed to get the soul count figured out before Michael came down on him like the anvil he was. And Auriel’s arrival regarding the missing Cherub loomed large. Heads would roll once that man had a target. Scrubbing his fingers through his hair he sucked in a deep breath and got a lungful of—Austin.
Why did she have to smell so good?
He slid a stealthy glance to the leather sofa against the far wall. The woman had been scowling at her laptop for hours. When he’d visited her apartment, he’d seen the thing open on the postage stamp she used as a kitchen table and brought it, amazed, yet again, how little her lack of sight held her back. She was a warrior in her own right.
A growl rumbled deep in his chest. He considered himself a strong man. He’d survived his childhood, risen to the top in his training with the Powers, fought in countless wars, both on winning and losing sides. He’d been shot, stabbed, tortured, cracked in the head, hit by cars, fallen from heights and nearly drowned. He’d always handled things with strength, honor and commitment to duty.
He never doubted his ability to face a tough situation and come out the victor and no one ever implied that he wasn’t committed to his station. He’d never faltered in his duty or even questioned his orders. Until Austin.
“You haven’t said much since Danel dropped his little prophetic bomb this morning, cowgirl. On a scale of one to ten, how pissed are you?”
The look she pegged him with locked the breath in his chest.
“Pissed?” she repeated. “Pissed doesn’t begin to cover it. No strings is different than you dyin’ because you’re with me. That should have come up. It was stupid.”
“I won’t die.” The wheels of his desk chair squeaked as he rose. He crossed the room to sink into the couch beside her. “I’m immortal.” Sort of.
She cast him a withering stare and he marveled yet again that she could glare so impressively that he felt it clench the air from his lungs. “I thought you understood I need you to shoot straight from the hip. I’m much better at dealin’ with things when I have the facts.”
“You have the facts. There is an age-old prophecy that may or may not have anything valuable to add to our lives. Nephilim are forbidden to form relationships, to care for someone or to have anything of our own. We are soldiers. Tools of the heavens. Nothing more. Like Danel said, you and I found pleasure in a moment of two worlds colliding but there can be no permanence, no relationship . . . no future. I’m sorry.”
She scratched her arm and bristled. “I’m not a child, Zander. We’re adults. We had sex. I wasn’t expecting anything beyond the moment. You should have been upfront with me.”
His beast didn’t like the way this conversation was headed at all. He wanted to eliminate the distance not drive a wedge between them. He unclenched his fists and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it. Honestly, with the world exploding around me, I just wanted one moment for myself.”
Austin’s face softened and she exhaled. Stetson stirred on the floor, his paws twitching as he dreamed whatever it was dogs dreamed of.
“I can understand that. You have a lonely lot in life. I’m sorry about that.”
Zander shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“Why are you guys here, anyway? Why aren’t you . . .” She frowned and gestured to the sky.
“Floating on a cloud somewhere?”
“Yeah, strummin’ your harp and frolickin’ with flaxen-haired beauties in gowns.”
“Other than that being commercial bullshit?”
She chuckled, and he was relieved for the ease in tension. “Yes, other than that.”
Zander tugged her earpiece out and set her laptop on the coffee table. Sliding her closer, he scooped her legs over his lap. They might not be allowed to have sex, but he was going squirrely not touching her. “The realm where the Choir of Angels exists is extraordinary—no argument. The females in gowns could inspire a grown man to chew off his own leg, but it’s not the place for males like me.”
“Do they have rules about cussing?”
He laughed. “Once Nephilim are grown and trained, our place is with the humans and Otherworld citizens we protect. I’m half angel, but that half is not the harp strumming, cloud hopping type.”
“Raphael and Michael seemed house-broken.”
He shook his head. “Don’t let their domesticated threads fool you. The seven—Michael, Raphael, and the others—have enough power to level the Hell Realm. Their urge to fight courses in our blood, but our human side makes us far more volatile, protective and often standoffish. We defend mankind by embracing our lethal side. We are killers.”
“And that doesn’t sit well with the folks upstairs?”
“Not really, no.”
She laid her head against his shoulder and breathed him in for a few quiet moments.
He liked this, just chilling together, talking about things he never got to talk about. He had his brothers, sure, but they didn’t do feelings. And his staff . . . they were staff.
“Austin, do you believe?”
She chuckled. “It’s hard to deny what you’re saying. I’ve got no other explanation.”
“I don’t mean believe what I’m telling you, I mean believe, as in faith in something other than that which you can explain. Something spiritual that guides you.”
She shook her head. “Politics and religion are two things I never discuss . . . especially with a guardian from the heavens.”
He ran his palm over her denim covered thigh and reveled in her weight. He felt like he’d float away if she wasn’t holding him down. “Angels have nothing to do with religion. Angels existed long before Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism or any of the ism’s.”
“I’d bet there are m
illions of God-fearing, church-goers that would argue.”
He shrugged, tilting his head so her hair brushed his face. “Long before humankind tried to organize the Otherworld into competing spiritual categories, or claimed enlightenment for the sake of land, riches, or war, there existed the tenuous balance between benevolence and malevolence, good and evil. Nephilim ensure that balance remains intact. There is Light. There is Dark. We are the Watchers of the Gray.”
“So, like eternal affairs.” She chuckled at her own joke.
He ran his knuckles against the line of her jaw and across her lips. Silky smooth. “I won’t apologize for my nature. I’ve taken lives for thousands of years, Austin. Thousands of years protecting the innocent.”
“Doesn’t running a sex club exploit the innocent?”
He inhaled. “I exploit no one. Evil preys on humans lost on the fringe of society, those alone, struggling to survive. My club is a safe zone. Every staff member, human or Otherworlder, comes from one bad situation or another: drugs, beatings, street violence, rape—”
“Wait. You have demon people workin’ for you? Jules?”
“Jules is human. She’s married to a daemon, but that’s beside the point.” His voice deepened, and he leaned back so she could see his face. “I offer a place where anyone who needs it can work without judgment and build or rebuild their lives. If they stay, they’re welcome, if not, I pay for them to take courses and complete their education, to relocate to a new life. When they’ve outgrown this place, I finance their new beginnings.”
“But why a sex club?”
Zander’s lips pressed into a tight line. “You’re looking at my club through human eyes—sin, shame, judgment. To members of the Otherworld, human expectations of propriety don’t apply. Live and let live. Hedonism. Group pleasure. Hooking up for money. If the parties involved are willing, it’s really no one else’s business. People get to make their own choices and I provide a safe environment for different races and alignments to interact. Light or Dark. Angel or daemon.”
“Daemons means demons, right?”