by Anne Marsh
He’d seduced her, had his fingers deep in sweet, wet heat, and she’d still refused him.
“I don’t do shortcuts,” she said, as if her words made perfect sense.
She thought he was a shortcut? “Explain,” he snapped. Rolling over onto his side, he stared down at her on his bed. He liked that sight.
“I work for what I want, Zer,” she said sweetly. “Maybe you should try it.”
She believed this was easy? He looked forward to enlightening her. “I work damn hard, baby. This isn’t a game. I need your promise.” Splaying one large hand over her heart, he let his fingers tease the edges of her collarbone.
Of course, she shook her head. “You’re not getting it. I don’t want a Goblin bond. You don’t have anything I need. Go find someone else.”
He had trackers hunting for the three other females on the list, but he simply couldn’t afford to waste this opportunity. She was one-fourth of an already too-puny arsenal, and he wasn’t giving up any advantage in this war. “We need you.”
“You want me,” she countered, “and sexual attraction is nothing more than evolution and biology.” Her lips parted in an indignant huff that undercut the careful logic of her words. “We don’t have an emotional connection, Zer. We have pheromones.”
Right. “You can call it what you want, baby, but you wanted me.”
She shrugged. “I can want you all I want, but that doesn’t mean I have to take you.”
He wasn’t prepared for his visceral reaction to the teasing mental image of her taking. Him.
“Let me go, Zer.”
“Appealing to my better side? You should know that I don’t have one.” He’d lost any light and goodness he’d possessed millennia ago, not that the Dominions had been known for their warm-and-fuzzy qualities to begin with. No, they’d been bred to be killers. Protectors. And they’d done a damn fine job of it.
He stroked his hands up her arms because he could, his thumbs pressing pleasurably against the tense muscles of her forearms. Stretching her arms up, over her head. Watching the visible struggle on her face—torn between relaxing into his touch and remembering who he was. Where he had her. Yeah, she thought too much.
“Happily-ever-after.” He smiled, and it was a hard, mean smile. “Romance. True love. You females love that shit. You buy it by the truckload. So, what’s not to love about this?”
She stared at him as if he had no clue. “Pheromones.” “Bond with us,” he repeated. “You were watching us on the vidscreen.”
There was a flush of embarrassment—and arousal—on her face. He traced the color with a fingertip, fascinated. He’d never met anyone—human or Fallen—who tried so hard to resist pleasure. What would happen if she let loose? “We’re offering fantasies—all your dark fantasies, coming true. You think about it, baby. Dream of it. Because I’m not letting you go.”
He levered himself smoothly off the bed, putting distance between them, before she could call him on his bluff. He had blood on his leathers, blood and another female’s scent. He’d shower before he slept with her, because he was sleeping with her tonight, and he wouldn’t lie with her stinking of another’s perfume.
“Let me go,” she called after him.
“Not a chance. You’re staying right here, where I can keep an eye on you.”
“Don’t trust your jailers?” Her taunt struck closer to home than he liked.
He trusted his brothers with his life, such as it was, but he wasn’t going to make the mistake of underestimating her. He had a sinking feeling that, if she tried, she could wrap him around her slender fingers. All she had to do was give him that heat she had stored away inside. If she burned for him, if she let him in, he was going to end up trapped.
And that made her damn dangerous.
“Stay here,” he growled, just to watch her eyes widen. With feminine pique.
“I’m not a dog,” she began, but he was already pulling his leathers off. Letting the heavy material drop to the floor.
“I’m showering,” he said, “and then I’m sleeping. Next to you.”
Leaving the door open so he had a full-on view of the suite and its occupant, he hit the shower. The hot jets of water burning his skin were a welcome recall to the present. Reaching for the soap, he watched her. He wasn’t stupid. He knew she’d run as soon as his back was turned, so, he wouldn’t give her the chance.
Since Zer didn’t close the door, Nessa decided privacy didn’t rate high on his list of priorities. Even as the hot steam fogged up the room, she had a bird’s-eye view of his body. Unconcerned, he’d stripped down right there in front of her, the heavy leathers hitting the floor. His blades, she couldn’t help noticing, stayed close at hand. When he’d placed the pair on the edge of the counter, she’d spotted the dark, inky swirl of a tattoo banding both wrists.
The shower was a showcase for luxury living, but its tall, waxy pillar candles and Tuscan-colored tiles were overwhelmed by the male himself.
Impossibly broad shoulders. Powerful thighs. Muscles rippled as he shoved his face into the hot spray, shaking back his wet hair. Water droplets slid down that golden skin, slicking the dark hair back from the strong lines of his face. The steam slowly blurring his outline should have made him seem less dangerous. Instead, the thick cloud made him seem more so.
He was a lethal predator only half-hidden by the clouds of steam.
“Why are you doing this?” she called to him.
He muttered a response and then repeated it, louder.
“Because it’s not respectful,” he said. “I’m going to lie beside you tonight, baby, but I won’t come to you like this.”
She’d meant the kidnapping, but his words shut her up fast.
He intended to spend the night in that bed. With her.
He washed with quick, deliberate movements. She didn’t think his behavior was meant as an erotic tease, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from his body. When he shut the water off and turned around, she frowned. White ridges marred the perfect smoothness of his back—thick, gnarled ridges of scar tissue.
What kind of pain must have accompanied the making of those scars? He had scars on his face and forearms, but nothing like these twisted ropes of whitened skin that looked as if someone had skinned the flesh from his back—or pulled it off in one great sheet.
Spotting her deer-in-the-headlights stare, he swore.
“What happened to your back?”
“Nothing.” Clearly nothing he wanted to talk about, and part of her couldn’t blame him. Whatever horrific event had caused that pain and suffering was best blocked from memory. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from repeating her question.
“What did this to you?” She couldn’t imagine anyone getting the best of him like that.
“It happened a long time ago,” he growled. Cursing, he wrapped a thick cotton towel around his waist and strode back out into the suite. “Millennia.”
She wasn’t letting this one go. “Tell me.”
He shot her a hard glance. “You really want to know, baby? You promise to kiss it better afterward?”
Standing and walking up to him, she reached out a hand. He didn’t move, challenging her. Fine. She wouldn’t back down, and he needed to know that.
“You make sure you know what you’re doing.”
“Tell me,” she repeated. “I want to know.” She did, and that surprised her. She shrugged when he looked at her. “I do, and I’m persistent. Ask my colleagues.”
“Stubborn,” he countered, but some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “It happened during the Fall.”
“Why did it happen?” He’d handed her one data point, and damned if she was going to let him off the hook now.
“Public education gotten that bad?” He strode over to a wardrobe. Banged open the drawers and rummaged around inside for clean clothes. “You have to know.”
“I know the official history. What there is of it. The Dominions, first-line angelic defenders, rose up agai
nst the Heavens. There was an attempted coup, and the Dominions—you—lost. As punishment, the Archangel Michael ordered your wings stripped off and sent you here to live with us. I’m not sure I like the idea of my world being considered the heavenly equivalent of a penal colony,” she added thoughtfully. “I happen to like it here.”
Yanking out a pair of sweats, he dropped the towel, giving her a luscious view of his ass. When he bent over, pulling on the sweats, her breath caught. He was magnificent. All male.
“Yeah, that’s the official version.” Slamming the drawer shut, he closed the distance between them. He loomed over her, a hard smile on his face. She didn’t flinch. “We both know the victor gets to write the history text.”
“So.” She eyed him measuredly. “Is the official history true?”
There was no simple way to explain what had happened three millennia ago. The memories rushed him before he could respond.
The human female standing in front of him dipped and swayed, the pale golden skin of her bare legs flashing as her skirts moved with the music. Dark eyes watched him with sensual promise. Should have been every male’s fantasy, but all Zer saw were corpses.
How fucked up was that?
He could use a week of this R & R, but he couldn’t stop the rewind in his head.
Three dead Dominion females in as many weeks. Always, males had outnumbered the females, and, as a result, Dominion women were fiercely protected. Adored. Kept safe no matter what the cost. Now, he had the entire Dominion camp up in arms. Outraged and on a killing edge. Because the recent killings were brutal. The murdering son of a bitch had split his victims open, letting their lifeblood drain away while he sexually brutalized their bodies.
It could have been daemon work. His fingers tightened on the tasseled cushions, and he forced his eyes not to move away as the dancer shimmied lower, her thighs bending, curving as she slipped the first of her veils free. He didn’t want the reminder, but there was no escaping the smooth flesh she uncovered for him.
He was a hardened warrior. He’d fought for two hundred years to defend the Celestial throne against the dark daemons that crawled out of other realms. He’d seen death. Witnessed brutality firsthand. Nothing, however, had prepared him for these deaths.
His instincts screamed that, no matter how vicious the killings, these were not daemon work. He’d spent decades learning to track, and the blade marks were wrong. Blades had been stolen before, but the pattern of the strokes was familiar, too, a training pattern taught to all Dominion younglings in the camps. There were no ground signs, either, as if the attacker had dropped down from above, pushing his victim inches deep into the soft ground with his unexpected weight.
Maybe he was wrong. What he wanted to do was get to his feet, palm his weapons, and tear apart the Heavens until he had his answers. Instead, he was stuck here in a Nabatu pleasure camp until the call came for him to fly out. The dancer did the dip-and-sway, and he doubted the sultry heat of the desert would fade any sooner than her impossible interest.
The air was a sensual weight against his bare chest, and, if he flexed his wrist, he had weapons close at hand. A good soldier followed orders. And Zer’s Archangel had ordered Zer down to Earth. So, here he stayed, right? Parked his ass, kept his wings benched.
“Sire.” Gliding her fingers up her stomach, between her breasts, the dancer paused for a long, delicious heartbeat. This close, there was no escaping the sweet, heated scent of her skin or her desire. Desire that filled the air between them with wicked promise as she danced.
Despite his best intentions, his cock thickened.
A loud commotion outside the pleasure tent broke the mood. Thrusting aside the tent’s leather flap, Vkhin strode in. He’d first met the brother a lifetime ago, but no one could claim to know the Dominion cutting across the tent’s thick layer of carpets. Wings tightly furled, Vkhin was as controlled, as cold and disciplined, as ever. He should have been the one the Dominions elected as their leader. Not Zer.
Another damn mystery he could puzzle out later.
“Michael has betrayed us,” Vkhin announced.
Palming his weapons, Zer pushed himself to his feet. “Details.”
“Brends has gone back to the Heavens.” Vkhin bit out the explanation, already whirling on one heel to make the return journey out of the tent.
Moving swiftly to the entrance of the tent, he followed. The girl, abandoned, watched them. Disappointment and something feral painted her face.
Leaving camp was a direct violation of the Archangel’s orders, but that was clearly what Vkhin intended. His feet didn’t stop pounding, beating out a path toward the camp’s perimeter. “Why—” Zer began, but Vkhin cut him off.
“Esrene reached out to him.” The other Dominion strode toward the camp’s only portal point, clearly intent on following their absconded brother into infamy.
“Why?” He laid a restraining hand on Vkhin’s arm, but the other shook him off. Brends was not a warrior who disobeyed orders. Ever.
“Esrene reached out to him through their pairling bond,” Vkhin clarified. “And then she was cut off. She was under attack, Zer.” Sunset sleepiness wrapped the camp around them. A faint moan of pleasure drifted out of a nearby tent, followed by satisfied male laughter and the soft clink of weapons being removed. Camp was a goddamn fantasy land.
“If she reached out, she wasn’t dead.” Yet. Running the previous murder sites through his head, he methodically reviewed the evidence. Had to be a pattern there.
“Brends believes she is in the hands of the killer.” Slamming a hand against the portal stones, Vkhin snarled a curse as he drew the sigils that would activate the doorway to take them from one plane to another. “Once we step foot through that portal, we’re outlaws. The Archangel, Michael, will hunt us.”
Zer’s brain kept moving even though his feet stopped. The first sigil sprang into glowing life. “True.” Michael was not an enemy one would choose to have. “So, why do you intend to do this? What makes you so certain that Michael has betrayed all we stand for?”
Vkhin’s bleak eyes turned toward him as the second sigil ignited. “Esrene named him. When she called out to Brends, she gave him Michael’s name.”
“She could have been mistaken. She could have invoked his name in a plea for help.” A name was not proof enough. He could not—would not—condemn his commander for a single word.
The last sigil exploded into life. “And that is why, my sire, I am returning to the Heavens. To see for myself.”
Sire. Leader. That was his job, wasn’t it? To lead the Dominion troops into battle. To be first into the heart of the fight.
And this was a fight.
“You hesitate,” Vkhin said. His voice was as cold and flat as ever. “That is understandable, sire. You should remain here. If I am mistaken in my understanding, you will correct matters.”
And then Zer would be the one to hunt and kill Vkhin. Zer swore. He hadn’t asked for this command. Hadn’t known how to refuse. And that was another question, wasn’t it? Why had he been chosen? At a mere two hundred years, he was still young. Untried. Still, there was no way he’d let Vkhin, his second-in-command, do the job that was his to do.
“I go,” he snapped as the portal exploded into life, mazhyk pulsing through it.
“We go together,” Vkhin countered.
There was no time to argue. Stepping into the portal, Zer let the mazhykical doorway connecting this backward earthly realm with their own Heavens suck him in. On the other side, he hit the ground hard, dropping and rolling, blades in his palms as he came up.
He was younger. Faster. Not waiting for Vkhin, he pushed his wings, muscles tearing as he forced his way through the air, his predator’s eyes reading the signs in the fading light. Below him, on the ground, a lighter body had run hard. The footprints were deep and desperate, the bare toes grabbing into the soft earth and pushing away with fierce intent. Behind, though, came the larger pursuer, and Zer’s throat closed. He could
read the signs of pursuit too clearly. Blood stained bushes he’d passed.
The bastard was playing games with her.
Control slipped away from him, leaving him only sick desperation. No one had wanted to believe him when he’d argued the killer was no daemon. He hadn’t wanted to believe the truth himself, but the tracks didn’t lie. Couldn’t lie. They were the wrong size, the wrong shape, for a daemon. Now, they were all going to pay the price for their disbelief.
The tracks ended abruptly in a small patch of empty space tucked up against the base of a hill.
He’d gotten his ass there before Vkhin or Brends, but he was still too late.
Far too late.
Wings flickered in his peripheral vision.
Refocusing, Zer pulled back, tore his gaze away from the crumpled body lying in the very heart of that small, empty space. Feeling was an unaffordable luxury right now. He couldn’t indulge himself in the need to crouch by her fading self, to coax what was left of her to remain. If he went rushing in, he might never know for certain—and he had to see the proof with his own eyes.
Michael, his heart whispered as the Archangel stalked into the clearing. There was blood on Michael’s hands and the Archangel didn’t stop his forward prowl until he was looking down at that pale, still form. Bastard didn’t so much as blink, and Zer reacted hard, palming his weapons. The sharp edge of the blade cutting into his hand stopped his own forward lunge.
Esrene’s chest stopped its shallow up-and-down.
Behind him, Vkhin cursed, low and vicious. “Now, sire.” Hell if those two words weren’t part accusation, part command.
And then Brends burst onto the scene. Zer’s brother was all hard-core, ruthless fighter. He didn’t hesitate or waste time with eyeballing the scene. No, Brends’s blade was free and clear, business end up, as he placed his body between Esrene’s and the Archangel’s. Zer kept his eyes on Brends’s hands. The moment that blade made a move in the Archangel’s direction, Brends drew himself a death sentence. Dominions were forbidden to raise a weapon against the Archangels.