by Michele Hauf
Ashur looked down at Eden, who smiled up at him.
“Listen,” Donovan said as he bent his legs to push himself up against the wall. He winced and stroked his throat. “As long as I know the location of this halo, that’s cool. I’ll leave it with you because I have a feeling you won’t let it fall into the wrong hands. But why does it glow?”
“We think it might belong to Zaqiel,” Eden offered. “It must sense he is near.”
“Is he the angel after you?” Donovan asked. “You’re a muse, I suspect.”
“I am, and he is,” Eden confirmed. She revealed the sigil on her forearm to him. “But he’s not my match.” A glance to Ashur entreated for information, but he intended to keep any secrets close to his chest and away from this intruder.
“You can’t let him get his hands on this halo,” Donovan said.
“Not going to happen.” Ashur reached behind him and unsheathed Dethnyht. He displayed it before him.
Donovan swallowed. “I’m a little weak on the whole hierarchy of angels, muses and vampires, but I’m guessing you’re not in that league. A slayer?”
“Sinistari,” Ashur said. “A demon who will not pause to remove your head should you make one wrong step. Understand?”
Donovan nodded profusely. “Completely.” Then he eyed Eden and Ashur. “Interesting pair.”
“I am her protector,” Ashur felt the need to say.
“Uh-huh. And more.” Donovan clapped his hands together. “I should go.”
“What did you do with the halos you took from my home?” Eden asked.
“They’re safe. I promise I will return them to you when this is all over. I may look like a thief to you, but I’m not. I can’t risk them falling into vampire hands. And if I got into your place so easily, nothing could have stopped a vampire. I hope you can understand.”
“What means do you use to protect the halos from the vampires?” Ashur asked.
“I’ve a safe protected by a witch’s spell. And garlic,” he added with a shrug. “I know that stuff doesn’t work, but it gives me strange comfort.”
“You should take that one, as well.” Ashur nodded toward the halo in the wall.
Donovan inspected the halo, which flashed blue intermittently. “Nope, I don’t think so. That one needs to be here for reasons beyond my understanding. Just keep it safe, and if the angel should get his hands on it, run like hell. Oh, and if a vampire named Antonio comes near you…stake him.”
“Antonio?”
Recognition tightened Eden’s voice. Ashur reached for her hand, but she slipped away. “What is it?” he asked.
She shuffled through her purse on the table and drew out a slip of paper. “Antonio Del Gado?”
Donovan gaped. “How do you know his full name?” The halo hunter took the paper Eden offered him. “Is this his number?”
“Yes. Is he a vampire?” she asked. “He bought all my paintings from a gallery showing the other night. I paint angels. Real ones that I see in my dreams.”
“Seriously? You see— Do you have examples?”
“Yes.” She pulled her laptop from the case and powered it up on the table. Within moments, she and the halo hunter were staring at the angel paintings.
“Can I get a copy of these?” Donovan asked. “They are remarkable. Never seen an angel myself, but if that’s what you’ve seen in your dreams—”
“You don’t think I’m crazy?” Eden asked hastily.
“Nope. You dreamed these sigils, too?”
“Not exactly. Those just sort of drew themselves as I was creating the work,” Eden added as she slipped a disk in the drive.
“Do not give him a copy.” Ashur slammed his fist on the table. “You don’t know this man. He could be working with the vampires. His girlfriend is a vampire!”
“We got together after I rescued her from Antonio,” Michael said. “I know it sounds hypocritical, but she’s not one of them. Antonio had enslaved her. You can trust me, Miss Campbell.”
“I do.” She handed him the disk with the copies of her paintings on it.
“Here’s my card,” he said. “I have a feeling you’re in good hands, but if you get any leads on more halos, I’d appreciate you keeping me in the loop.”
“I will.” Eden tucked the card in her back pocket. “Thanks, Mr. Donovan.”
Michael retrieved his fedora from the kitchen table and walked toward the door. “Can I open this now?”
“Yes, the wards have already been broken.”
“Sorry about that. I hadn’t a clue. Goodbye, Eden, Ashur. And good luck.”
Ashur hugged Eden to him as the door closed. They clung to each other as the engine rumbled away down the road. Forgetting his quick anger and jealousy, Ashur squeezed her against him, wishing that one of their hugs would eventually imprint her upon his being so he would never forget her.
She smelled ethereal, like he imagined Above must smell. Could he ever touch those memories? Did he want to?
“Now, about us,” she said.
Looking down into her eyes, he wished the world was different. That he was different. That he could change things with the snap of his fingers.
Impossible.
He needed to snap Eden’s neck if he wished to please his archangel master.
Chapter 26
He pulled away from her when she most needed him to enfold her in his strong arms and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. That did not bode well for Eden’s future.
Because somewhere in the past few days she’d forgotten that this relationship was just a muse and her demon protector. Eden had mistakenly fallen into the romance of it all. Yes, she had fallen, just like a wicked angel.
“You spoke to Raphael?” she prompted, hoping to win back his regard.
Ashur leaned in the front doorway, his back to her and his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. All his trouble to set up the wards had been destroyed by one unknowing halo hunter. Donovan couldn’t have known. He’d seemed genuinely apologetic.
A bird fluttered near the door, but with a swish of Ashur’s hand, it was redirected away.
“Ashur, talk to me.” She suspected he wasn’t in the mood for touch, but he wasn’t going to push her away. Not now. She knew what it was like to want to push away those who loved you. It was a mistake.
Eden wrapped her arms around him from behind and spread her palms across his chest. He was warm now, humanly warm. Was it because he’d raged earlier when the halo hunter was here? Or was he becoming more human the more time he spent on earth?
“You asked Raphael about the mark on the back of your head,” she said. “Are we?”
He clasped one of her hands and kissed it. Then he held her fingers against his mouth and nodded.
His silent confirmation swept a giddy wave through her system. Eden smiled against his shoulder. Yet she suspected he was not so overjoyed. Of course, she knew he guarded his joy well.
“I am your muse? How can that be? You’re…not an angel.”
He turned and tugged her to stand between his legs. Adjusting his position against the door frame, he lowered himself to eye level with her. Caressing her hair, he stroked it for a while, drawing it down her chest and tracing the curling ends of it upon her breast.
Nothing else in this world distracted him. Just her.
Eden loved standing like this, against him, a part of him, so accepted, as if he couldn’t imagine standing any other way. She dared to hope, because hope was all she had.
“I did speak to Raphael,” he finally said. “The truth is remarkable. When two hundred angels fell, so many millennia ago, twenty were removed from the ranks before their feet could touch earth. From those twenty, angelic metal was drawn and twenty blades were created. Then the twenty fallen were forged into the Sinistari and matched to a blade. It was necessary, because only an angel can kill an angel.”
“So you were once…an angel?”
He nodded. “Apparently one so willful and wicked as to pa
rticipate in an evil pact to fall.”
“Oh.” She understood where his head was at. He considered the Fallen the most foul, evil things to walk the earth. And to discover he had actually been one of them…? “You are not what you were, but what you are now, Ashur. You’re a good man.”
He snorted a mirthless chuckle.
“Ashur, I know you.” She pressed a hand over his chest, where his heart did not pulse. “You are not evil.”
He grabbed her hand and held it against his heart. Nothing about his lacking pulse bothered her. She accepted him.
But could he accept her?
Eyes closed, Ashur said, “Do you not find it ironic that the one woman I fell to earth to claim—to rape and put a monster child in her belly—” he opened his eyes and pinned her with his mirthless gaze “—is the one woman who now makes me wish for a human soul?”
“You mean that? You would take a human soul?” His announcement quickened her pulse. That would mean they could really be together.
Now she felt him stiffen and their connection faded too quickly. “A human soul will never be mine.”
“Yes, it can be. Ashur, don’t you see? We were destined to be together.”
“Not in any romantic or loving manner. Open your eyes, Eden. I am not like you. I never will be like you. How can you persist with this charade of caring about me?”
“Because I love you.”
There, she’d said it. And she meant it. They had known each other but a few days, but Eden’s heart had been waiting for Ashur forever. He fit her soul.
But Ashur’s reaction ripped out her heart and thrust it against the wall.
He tore away from her embrace and stalked off across the stone courtyard. He made haste down the road leading up to the house. How could he walk away from her after she’d put her heart out in the open?
“What have I done? Will I never learn? Even if he could love me, I can never give him the one thing he values most. Joy.”
Which, as Ashur interpreted it, was actually a child.
Eden tucked her head against the door frame and sniffed tears.
Never in her life had she been so ready to fall into a man’s arms and face together whatever life tossed at them. It felt right. She could think of spending time with no other man.
But he wasn’t man. He wasn’t even human.
“I don’t care,” she murmured. “I love you, Ashur.”
Bruce laid the list of names on the black granite desktop. Antonio snatched it up. He always wore old stuff like frock coats and lace and weird shoes with buckles. Bruce had once thought him eccentric, a vampire stuck in a lost past, but lately he just thought him a nut.
Though his idea to capture a nephilim so they could strengthen the tribe’s bloodline was genius. Bruce looked forward to the day when he could actually walk during the day, instead of lurking about in the shadows.
Not all vampires feared sunlight. Most had evolved over the centuries, and if you were created a vampire today you could walk in the daylight for a while without burning.
Bruce could walk the day because he’d been created by a rogue vamp. Antonio’s pockets were deep, and he required a day walker to do his dirty work, thus, this arrangement.
What kind of weirdness was it that Bruce’s blood master was a frail old coffin-sleeper?
He edited the word frail from his thoughts. Antonio was strong and devious. Bruce wouldn’t dream to question his authority.
“From the angel?” Antonio asked.
“Zaqiel.”
“He still hasn’t found his muse?” Antonio leaned back in the modern leather office chair and put up one buckle-shoed foot on the open desk drawer. “We need to become more involved. If the Fallen cannot find their muses…?”
“It’s the Sinistari. He’s scared the Fallen one off. What we should be doing is tracking them, both angels and muses. In fact, I think we should grab us a muse and lure the Fallen to us. You know, to make sure they find the correct match.”
“It is a good idea.”
“Really?” Bruce straightened and set back his shoulders. “Yeah, it is.”
After lounging in bed for an hour, watching the full moon move across the sky, Eden realized Ashur might not return tonight. Had he walked out on her for good?
She should be used to it by now. But a girl never got used to being alone, whether by choice or force. What was it about her that forced people away? She had been doing well for years, not mentioning her dreams of angels to others. Yet if she could speak about them to anyone it was Ashur.
She honestly thought he cared about her. Was she fooling herself?
She slipped on her robe and strode downstairs for something to nibble on. As she walked through a swath of moonlight, she twanged the halo, still stuck in the plaster wall. They figured it had something to do with Zaqiel. Maybe, though, it simply liked the air here in Italy and glowed in response. Tonight, however, it wasn’t glowing.
She was surprised Michael Donovan had left the halo here, given that he’d stolen the other three from her home. Something about it glowing had freaked him. She sensed he wasn’t sure he wanted involvement in this game, but had been thrust into it. And he was in deep, what with his vampire girlfriend.
Angels and demons and vampires. It was a bizarre, impossible mix, but Eden wasn’t up on supernatural creatures. Likely the juxtaposition of creatures worked just fine to them.
Unless you were a halo hunter being stalked by vampires.
And yet some vampire had purchased her paintings. And she could guess why. If Ashur’s guess that she had innate knowledge of angel sigils was correct, then perhaps they were required by the vampires to summon Fallen.
“I should have asked Michael if crosses were good protection.”
Down in the cellar sat dozens of jars of preserved garlic from the garden out back, but Michael had testified that garlic didn’t work. So now where was the cross that Ashur had used for the warding? It had disappeared, or at least, she hadn’t noticed it lying around. Eden felt sure she could rustle up a cross somewhere.
But what about a stake? She could fashion one from…a chair leg?
Maybe. She’d have to have Ashur help her with that.
She sliced a juicy peach and sprinkled cinnamon on it. The fruit satisfied what she suspected wasn’t actually hunger but more longing for Ashur to return. But like the watched pot that doesn’t boil, she knew he wasn’t going to walk through the door if she sat and stared at it.
After eating, she decided to wash the dishes still sitting in the sink. The cataclysmic shaking the house had taking during the warding had left a coating of dust on them.
Her hands sloshed around in the dishwater, and she worked at the crusted food on a plate with her fingernail. The sensual feel of slick soap on her skin as it glided over the porcelain made her think of making love to Ashur.
Everything about Ashur was hard, save for his heart.
Yet that heart did not beat. It should bother her more, but she couldn’t go there. Couldn’t summon fear or loathing. He’d been so shocked when she’d told him she loved him.
But it was true. She had fallen for him, as he had fallen from heaven. The man had once been an angel. Now all he sought was joy.
Eden set the last plate aside on a towel she’d laid out for drying. She had to admit a strange sense of pride in this domestic chore. She had never washed a dish in her life. It was actually kind of rewarding to pull out a clean plate from the soapy water and admire her reflection in it. But it would be much more fulfilling if Ashur’s smile were paired alongside hers.
Scratching her neck, Eden swore. “Stop it. Damn, it itches.” She plunged her hand into the water and slopped it along her neck, but the soap irritated the angelkiss further.
Leaning forward and closing her eyes, she tried to focus her mind away from the burning desire to drag her fingernails along her flesh.
“Where is he?” she muttered.
She decided to drain the sink and run
clean, clear water over her neck. Cool water did the trick as she leaned over the sink allowing it to trickle slowly over her flesh.
“Ashur, I need you,” she said aloud. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but she wasn’t going to discount that wacky notion. “It’s been four hours. Where are you?”
Suddenly the comforting warmth of strong hands slid about her waist and a hot kiss nestled against the back of her neck.
“Mmm…” She tilted her head against the crown of his head and slid her hands along his arms. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve been missing you far too much. But finally I have you.”
That voice. But even more, that scent. Sweet and subtle.
Spinning about and pressing her spine against the hard sink rim, Eden stared into the unnatural blue eyes of Zaqiel. The circle sigil about his left eye glowed.
Chapter 27
“It’s about time he left you alone long enough for me to slip in.” Zaqiel stood before her, less than a hands-width between them.
The disturbing lack of kindness in his voice only ratcheted up Eden’s adrenaline. She gripped the sink behind her, her knuckles tightening. There were no knives in the sink; they were beneath the plates, drying on the towel.
Zaqiel was different now than when she’d seen him at the gallery. Now he looked only half human and half…She didn’t know what.
Iron armor studded with spikes and gray feathers sat on his shoulders like football gear. Or maybe it was his shoulders. And the feathers weren’t soft and fluffy, but rather fashioned of fine wire.
The iron swept down across his ribs in slashes that gave wonder if it were a part of his flesh. Tight steel abs were etched with a black tattoolike design Eden did not recognize, but she could guess it wasn’t the Boy Scout emblem. It looked demonic with the five-pointed star in the circle. But how could that be?
His leather pants looked like some kind of liquid metal and resembled muscled sinews clamped together with strands of silver chain.