Domiel

  He took the phone outside and called Ambrose.

  The conversation lasted all of two minutes.

  The weight of the situation had doubled since he’d gotten off the phone. Kelsey had been correct on all accounts, only it had been different coming from Ambrose. The male had stiffly informed Domiel that he was now to assassinate Kelsey, as if Ambrose had no emotional connection to her whatsoever. As if he hadn’t known her for centuries.

  If Domiel failed to carry out his mission his future within the Alliance was forfeit. Then he’d be open season for Luc, but he didn’t give a damn. He had no intention of putting his safety before Kelsey’s right now. She needed him, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

  Ambrose’s lack of emotion concerned him, and at the same time that concern made him feel alive. All the emotions he thought he didn’t have seemed to be ignited by this one woman and her circumstances. For the first time in millennia he felt as though something mattered.

  For the last few months he’d relished his new-found freedom. In Heaven he’d served his duty as an Angel of Souls. Death was only a different level of existence, and he’d helped souls with the transformation without thought to emotion or pain.

  Taking a job with the Alliance had been easy. They weeded out the bad so that the good of their species could thrive. The fact he was an emotionless bastard would work well with his new occupation. Holding true to form, when Ambrose had given Domiel a mission that should have been devastating for him to deliver, Domiel had done his duty and took off after her, thinking he might have to do the unthinkable.

  Not anymore.

  Memories should have made the sentencing difficult for Ambrose. A strong bond between two people built on friendship and memories. It was the one thing Domiel ached for, and now Ambrose proved the insignificance of it with his actions.

  Ambrose had told him the Alliance had concrete evidence, and Kelsey had been tried in her absence. Sven, Roger, and Ambrose—who comprised the judge and jury—had been in a meeting for hours. Her sentence had been decided upon, and Domiel’s course of action had been laid out.

  And that was that.

  The pictures on the wall of the vacant house mocked him, and no doubt mocked Kelsey as well. He picked one up, his thumb brushing the wood of the frame. The normality of family photos brought to the surface what he’d really yearned for when he’d fallen. He’d expected to build connections with others. To feel a common link. Only no matter how close he got to people—and he’d gotten as close as one could get—he didn’t feel that emotion that bonded people together. He loved no one.

  But he felt something for Kelsey.

  She’d never really spoken to him much, nor sought him out to share a meal with, but it was with her friends that she really caught his attention. She had a light about her that drew him in. She was sweet when off duty and determined when on.

  He was infatuated with her. Had been for some time.

  His escapades involving the other sex had been limited to activities shared between the sheets. He’d be lying to himself if he said it hadn’t been intoxicating. Sex was, without a doubt, a highly addictive form of entertainment, and yet that was all it was to him. An emotionless, seductive way to pass the time. Hell, he couldn’t remember one woman from the next.

  He knew if he carried out his mission as Ambrose had instructed, Kelsey wouldn’t cease to exist. Death was only a transition. But he wasn’t ready to say good-bye. He couldn’t use his own hands to kill her physical body.

  And yet Ambrose hadn’t had a problem with giving the task to end her existence to another assassin. He was also too cowardly to see to it himself. He couldn’t look her in the eye and end her life, but Domiel, who’d stared the human equivalent of death in the face countless times, was fit for the job. Or so Ambrose thought.

  “I was surprised when you merely walked away. You could have had the easiest assassination in history.”

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, he realized he’d lost track of time. A little over an hour had passed while he’d been on the phone and lost in thought. Domiel put the picture back on the mantle and turned. She looked nothing like she had earlier. Her blond hair hung down her back, full and shiny. Her skin was fresh and pink, which accentuated the blue of her eyes. She reminded him of the Virtues in Heaven. Their beauty and composure. But it was the sadness etched on her features that almost made him turn away. Again, something about her seemed so damned familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

  “I gave you forty-eight hours. I’ll keep my word.” She had dark circles under her eyes. “You okay?”

  “Migraine,” she answered simply.

  Strange. Vampires didn’t get migraines. Could that demon be causing her pain somehow? There was so much she wasn’t telling him.

  “They really think it’s me killing these demons. I have to admit, I thought you were right about Alexia, and maybe she’d gone a little too far, but she hadn’t. They … Ambrose really does want me dead.”

  “And what are you going to do about it?” If he coddled her now she’d let go of the inner strength that made her who she was, and she could easily become dependent on his. He didn’t want to see her give up. He wanted to see her strong again.

  For the first time since she’d run, she looked defeated. “I was hoping you’d just do your job, and then I wouldn’t have to think about it.”

  Her simple explanation stunned him. There was something about this woman that made him care, and he’d be damned if he let that go. “What’s the first rule in the Alliance?”

  Her answer was swift and without thought. “Don’t get caught doing your job with humans around.”

  Clearly he had to pay more attention during training sessions. “Okay, the second.”

  “Fight for the good in our species.”

  “And how is your situation any different? You’ve given up before you even tried.”

  She took a step toward him, her head slightly cocked to the side. “You don’t believe I’m guilty?”

  This was the third time she’d asked him that question. It was obvious his response mattered to her. He couldn’t turn his back on her as Ambrose had. If he did, he’d have to come to terms that he’d fallen for nothing more than a mirage. He still wasn’t sure if he trusted her, or if he only wanted so badly to trust her. He was tired of being an emotionless bastard, and he’d be damned if he’d follow orders from a hypocrite like Ambrose. Trust meant something. Friendship meant something. That’s why those family pictures made him want to fucking weep.

  He would not be the one to take her hope away from her. “More than that, Kels. I’ll help you prove it.”

  The fire was back in her eyes, and damned if that didn’t please him more than it should. He had a nagging suspicion that he was making a mistake. What if her past was still locked within her and the possession had pushed her over the edge? What if she had done the things Ambrose accused her of? He said he had concrete evidence to prove beyond a doubt it had been her killing those demons.

  She closed the distance between them, confidence now evident in the way she carried herself. “They’re going to send all they have at us. Ambrose considers me a rogue assassin right now, which is the worst kind of target. He may even send in Sven or Roger. Unless the demon comes to me in my dreams, I have no idea how I’ll locate him. I can try and find him in the dream realm, but that’s a crapshoot unless he wants to be found. Even if I find him, I can’t do anything in his subconscious. I need to find him in the real world to kill him.”

  Sven and Roger were Ambrose’s right-hand men. Both were deadly, and both carried out their missions efficiently. It seemed as though he were making his first mission into something else entirely by helping out a rogue. “Didn’t you tell me the best thing I could do was build trust with my fellow assassins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t let me down.”

  Chapter Five

  Domiel was the sexiest demon Kelsey had ever known, and that was saying som
ething.

  He eyed the Goth club from behind dark glasses that hid his demonic eyes. His pupils weren’t round, they were horizontal slits, and he hadn’t quite learned to control their shape yet. Even without the wicked pupils, his eyes were golden, and that in itself was arresting. “She said she’d call me, and if you know anything about Alexia you’d know she keeps her word. She’d die attempting to make this call. Or kill someone to dial the digits. Likely the latter.”

  The club was dark, smoky, and loud, just like she remembered it. The patrons were decked out in gothic garb complete with fake fangs, fake blood, and the occasional cape. The music hit on beats that went straight through her body, as if the sound cradled her heart and pounded on it like a set of drums.

  She had a lot of memories in this club. Been in a few bar fights with the locals. Jade had been kicked out, but not before she’d planted her fist in the eye of a guy who had dared to grab her ass.

  This time around Kelsey didn’t quite fit in. Black wool turtleneck sweater and pleated black slacks. Not exactly club wear, but she was on a mission to beat all missions. After connecting to Ambrose she’d been emotionally spent. It wasn’t every day that your family put a hit out on you. Putting things in perspective had been difficult, even heartbreaking, and she wasn’t sure she’d done it yet, because as many times as she’d tried to convince herself Ambrose was being misled, the simple fact remained that he’d marked her as a vic.

  Domiel slipped his wallet back into his back pocket after paying their fees. “You know Ambrose can read the thoughts of others. If you are innocent of the crimes, he should be able to see that. Why didn’t you just go to him and let him read your mind?”

  Because she had secrets she would never share with another immortal. Not with Jade. Not with Lexie. Not with anyone. “My powers revolve around thoughts and mind tricks, so he’d never get the truth out of me if I didn’t want him to know. He’s aware of that.”

  They managed to push through the crowd and arrive at the bar. She leaned over the countertop. “I’ll have a vodka sour,” she said in French.

  The bartender snatched a bottle from the rows of alcohol and expertly poured a shot and a half into a small, plastic cup filled with ice. After he’d poured in the sour mix, he glanced up at her, and his face split in a grin—complete with fake fangs. “Kels! How’s the tat pack doing? Is Jade here?”

  Jade had always been Rick’s favorite. She was everyone’s favorite. “She’s back in Scotland. I’ll tell her you said hi.”

  Kelsey wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure Jade had given Rick more than a monetary tip. For a human he wasn’t bad. Short, spiked brown hair, tanned and muscular. If he took out the fangs he wouldn’t look Goth at all, which was a plus for his day job. He was a business man of some sort. Liked to party, though.

  Rick glanced at Domiel as he handed her the drink. His gaze shifted back to hers. “How long are you in the city?”

  Hopefully not long. “Not sure yet,” she answered honestly.

  Rick suddenly grew serious. “No bar fights. The crowd is pretty low key tonight.”

  Another time, another place, she wanted to say. She smiled, but made no promises. She waited patiently as Domiel ordered a beer, glancing around the club and wishing Jade and Lexie were with her. Back when things hadn’t been so complicated, when they’d been single and flirtatious. When all Kelsey had to battle were vics and her own dark memories.

  He paid the bill, then put a palm against her lower back and gave her a nudge toward one of the dark corners of the bar. “So how is this going to work? She’s going to call the club asking for you?”

  The small conversation with Rick had her thinking about simpler times. She took a deep breath and pushed those memories away. “No. There’s a pay phone in the back by the bathrooms. Problem is, I have no idea when she’s going to call.”

  Domiel was leading her straight to her old stomping grounds. Close enough to the back doors should they need to make a quick exit, and close enough to the dance floor to move fast when a kick-ass song blared through the massive speakers. Funny how things changed. God, quit thinking about it.

  Domiel had been acting strange ever since her minor meltdown. Even now, among the humans, he threw off a protective vibe directed right at her. Funny thing was, she kind of liked it.

  When they commandeered a tall table with four stools, both took seats so their backs were to the wall. As she settled into the stool, her thigh brushed against his. She’d sparred with him so many times on the training mats, the contact should have passed with no thought whatsoever. This time the contact felt intimate.

  She pulled her thigh from his, wondering why in the hell it mattered. “Why were you fantasizing about me?”

  Instead of making him uncomfortable, he only shrugged. “You’re strong. Sexy. What’s not to fantasize about?”

  And yet he hadn’t even raised his eyebrows back at the house. “The red hair?”

  “Personal preference.”

  He was completely without emotion when he spoke about his fantasy involving her wearing an apron and go-go boots. Or was it just that he hid his emotions better than most? The personal preference toward red hair pissed her off. “Okay. So you don’t like my blond hair?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Is the phone ringing yet?” She’d pulled away from physical intimacy only to strike up an intimate conversation. She took a healthy drink of her vodka. Maybe the booze would trigger some common sense.

  He pressed her. “Why do you care?”

  He was actually serious. “I don’t.”

  His fun personality and the fact that no one could keep him interested outside of the sack had all the women in the Alliance begging for his attention. As the newest addition to the alpha males of the Alliance, he’d been labeled fresh meat. For many, he was the one that got away. For a few he’d been a notch in their bedposts. For all he’d been unattainable beyond the bedroom—or closet, kitchen, wherever and whenever the mood struck him. That type of challenge made the fresh meat even tastier, especially for the tough, wicked women of the Alliance. If she wasn’t mistaken, a few of them had made bets on him. No one had won yet.

  He took a healthy swig of his beer. “The day I came to collect Jade’s soul for her transition, I stood over her body while she fought to stay alive. As I waited for her to take her last breath, so I could locate her silver cord and sever it, Samael begged me to spare her life, as though I had that power. He knew I couldn’t control when a person’s time in this realm was up, and yet he begged because he didn’t know what else to do. When I decided to give Jade my angelic blood, I didn’t do it for him. I did it to experience what he was willing to give up for her. His life. His soul. What would make a person do that?”

  Where in the hell had that come from? How’d they go from talking about fantasies to serious questions about life?

  She took a decent chug of her drink and figured what the hell? Listening to Domiel speak of Jade’s near-death experience, and his part in it, gave him an edge with her. He’d saved one of her friends. Why he’d brought it up, she couldn’t guess and didn’t feel the need to analyze.

  “You’ve never loved someone to the point you’d give your own life for theirs? Trade your happiness for theirs?” She’d never really thought about it before. Once you came to care for someone, those things just fell into place. Hell, she’d placed herself in front of Jade and Lexie many times before, when weapons threatened to bring them down. They’d done the same for her.

  “No.”

  The swift way he’d answered her was telling in itself, but his eyes told another story. What made him care? Who made him care? “Don’t angels feel anything?”

  “Most do, yes. Feelings for others are not dormant, as lust is. My job was demanding. I had to shut out the begging and the pleas of the humans and just do my job. There were times death was welcome. In cases of extreme disease or debilitating illness, the family only wanted peace for their loved ones.
Those cases made my existence bearable.”

  “But you knew they were going to a better place.” That’s how she’d survived her daughter’s murder. Heaven. Her child was in a much better place, and though Kelsey still missed her terribly, she could take solace in that.

  “Absolutely. But it was the loved ones of the deceased who … it was disturbing at times.”

  She could still recall the terror and desperation in her own voice when she realized her daughter had quit moving … quit breathing. Hell, she’d still been terrorized days later when she’d had to drink from Ambrose to survive her transformation. She’d often wondered if Ambrose had read her thoughts that day.

  The intensity of his stare overrode the loud beat of the music, making it seem as though they were the only two people in the club. “You were an Angel of Souls? Like Samael?”

  “Yes.”

  Samael had fallen in the First Angelic Revolt, over two thousand years ago. Domiel had fallen mere months ago. His job in Heaven had been helping people transition from one plane of existence to another. He’d faced death on a daily basis. Hell, he’d been death. What would that do to a person? Samael had spoken to her about his time as an angel briefly, when everyone had frequented her room at the Alliance Headquarters just after her ordeal, feeling as though she’d needed her hand held to get better. The job he’d described had curled her toes.

  How many times had Domiel had to shut out those who begged for their loved ones to be spared?

  “What made you choose to fall from grace?”

  “Two things. I wanted…” Whatever it was he was about to say, he decided not to. “I decided it was time for a change. Another Angel of Souls convinced me to take the plunge. She was rather new to the job, having been a human once. Her words were what filtered through my mind when I was standing over Jade.”

  “What words?”

  “Everyone deserves happiness.”