by Michele Hauf
“I’ll go up and have a look-see.”
She grabbed my arm, holding me back. “You’re not going to trick me, are you? Take the halo and run?”
“If the halo is up there, that means the angel is, as well. I only need the halo to attract the angel,” I said. “After that, it’s yours.”
“Oh.”
“Surprised I don’t have plans to go all evil-bloodsucker on you?”
She shrugged.
Yeah, she was surprised.
Chapter Four
The vampire walking toward me had the sexiest stride. A bit of a swagger, his arms gliding sinuously at his sides, but sleek, lean edges that could blend into the shadows and emerge to wrap about you like a dream come to life.
Oh, hell, Coco, what are you thinking? I was not letting this guy get under my skin. He was a vampire.
I prided myself on free thinking, being nonjudgmental. “Love your neighbor and peace to the world” and all that jazz. Born a mix of British, African-American and French, race never registered on my radar. Wasn’t vampirism just another race?
And really? He’d already gotten under my skin and into my veins. Too late to turn back now.
“She’s dead,” he said curtly, shoving his hands in his pockets and paralleling me.
“The angel has already been here?”
“No, I mean dead, as in cancer or some such. Her flat was empty. Talked to a neighbor in his PJs who said she spent the last three months in the hospital. Her death was completely unrelated to being a muse. So now we’ve an angel, armed with his halo, stalking the streets of London in search of another muse.”
“Oh, my God. My sister!”
“She lives in town?”
“No, Berlin, but she could be in danger. Can’t angels like fly or walk the world swiftly?”
“No flight, but indeed they do that fast-walking bit that tends to impress me, despite their nasty nature.”
I tugged out the cell phone and tapped in Cassandra’s number.
Zane leaned against a street post, ankles crossed and eyes taking in the surroundings like a panther on the prowl.
When had that scar become sexy? It cut over his dark brow and right through that funny-looking white eye, then tore through a high cheekbone GQ models would have killed for. I wanted to touch it, trace it softly, maybe even dash my tongue over it, instilling a hint of kindness where he’d only felt rage. I didn’t think vampires could scar—
“Cassandra? You okay?”
I explained to her we’d lost the halo, and didn’t mention my accomplice happened to drink my blood twice already. She did not want me to come to her, but I insisted. I’d book the next flight to Berlin.
“Why are you defying your sister?” Zane asked as I started down the street toward an Underground station where I could take a subway to my flat, pack and catch a cab to the airport. “There’s nothing you can do without the halo. You’re not an angel slayer, love.”
“Nor are you!”
He flinched, but shook out his shoulders and gave an abrupt twist of his neck. “Right, then. So I guess this is where we part ways.”
Seriously? He could walk away from me like that? Without another kiss? Without even asking for my phone number?
Coco, you are not falling in love with this guy!
No, I was not, but serious like was very probable.
He grabbed my arm and tugged me into the shadows. Before I could protest his insistent need for the rough stuff, I followed his gesture, pointing down the street. I recognized the hulking frame and the menacing air.
“Gotcha,” Zane whispered. “The angel comes to us.”
And like that the sky opened up and doused us with rain.
It was more than rain, it was Noah’s bloody flood pouring from the heavens. I grabbed Coco’s arm and hustled her across the street to find refuge under the tin overhang of a sweet shop. But I wasn’t about to lose the angel this time. She followed as I tracked around the corner and spied the angel entering a warehouse.
I could go in, kill the bastard and take what I needed. But he was armed with a deadly weapon, and me and my aching backside were a little skittish of that damned halo.
“We’re going to wait it out,” I decided, shrugging a shoulder that tugged at my scarred back.
We slunk along the shadows and the opposite buildings, until I found an abandoned warehouse across the street. The second floor provided vantage of the angel’s hiding spot. I spied the tiny blue glow from the halo.
“He’s not going anywhere,” I reported.
Coco sighted in on the halo. “Why not?”
“Your granny didn’t teach you that angels don’t like water? They can drown in less than four inches.”
“I don’t understand. Why don’t they just fly off?”
“I told you, the Fallen cannot fly. It’s something to do with Noah’s flood. First time God wiped them from the earth in punishment for Falling was with the great flood.”
“Wow.” She leaned against a Sheetrock wall, punched out in places and scrawled with graffiti. “You’re all up on your Biblical lore. I wouldn’t have expected—”
“That a monster would have such knowledge? I haven’t always been a vampire, love.” I squatted to the side of the window so the angel wouldn’t spy me.
“Ninja first, then vampire?” she inquired, and knelt before me. Her knowing smile let me know she was in on the ninja joke.
I was uncomfortable with her being so close. But why? We’d already kissed and groped. Hell, I’d been inside her thick vein, had penetrated her so intimately. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Very well, it could…
Thunder rumbled across the rooftops, but she held my gaze, unflinching. She was either very brave, or too stupid to know her own peril.
And look at me. Peril? Sod me, but I wanted the woman, naked and moaning beneath me. The only peril that involved was that of the— No, I wasn’t going there. Not some bollocks about the heart and all that love mush.
“Tell me about this.” She stroked my cheek over the scar tissue.
I jerked away from her tenderness. “No.”
“Fine. You know you’re not a monster, right?”
Oh, the poor beguiled little bird.
“What part of bloodsucking fiend does not resemble monster-ish to you?”
“The part where you care enough about a stranger to protect her. I’m not sure why you’re after the angel, but I sense that’s not so evil, either.”
I blew out a breath, not sure how to reply. She had me pegged wrong. Guess it was up to me to set her straight.
“Monsters attack innocent women in alleyways and leave their necks torn open, the carotid spurting until they die. That monster, when he saw me approaching to see if the woman needed help, turned on me and did the same. Except, I survived.”
I tilted my head at her. “So you see? I’m from sturdy monster stock. It doesn’t get much worse than taking life from others to sustain your own.”
“You don’t kill.” She insinuated herself upon my lap with an ease I wouldn’t have managed even with persuasion. “I know you don’t.”
I’d killed many while serving the British SAS only a decade earlier. But that was neither here nor there.
Her touch along my brow was too gentle. I wanted to drown in the tenderness, just…surrender to what I desperately wanted. It had been a long time since this monster had experienced such intimacy.
“Sounds like the storm is a doozy,” she said. “We’re going to be here awhile. So let’s make out.”
“Er…okay, love.”
I let her kiss me because she was right. The angel was trapped until the storm let up. And I wasn’t much for standing stakeout, staring across the way at our prey for endless, spine-breaking hours. Had to pass the time somehow….
“Wait.” I pushed her from my mouth, regretting the loss of her warm neediness. “I get it. Tough guy shoves you around a bit, bites you and treats you badly. You’re
chasing the bad-boy fantasy, eh?”
“If that’s how you want to call it.” The twinkle in her brown eyes told me she wasn’t that stupid, and was also smart enough to play along with me to get what she wanted. Apparently, what she wanted was me.
That was a bit of all right.
Oh, but she knew how to give a kiss. And me sitting there, drowning in her sensual taste, the press of our bodies, the happy wonder of her— “Wait.”
She sat back with a frustrated sigh.
“Can’t do it,” I muttered. A lie. What was up with that? Free kisses and all the other good stuff that would follow? What kind of sod was I to refuse?
“Why not?” She toyed a finger along the curve of her cocoa-and-cream breast. Pouty lips teased my defenses. “Am I doing it wrong?”
“No.” Don’t pout those kiss-bruised lips. Just…ah, bollocks. Must. Resist.
“Don’t I appeal to you?”
“You do. But, love—”
“I have bad breath or something?”
“I’ll bite you,” I snapped out. It was a good excuse, not necessarily true, but it should serve.
“Don’t you need my permission to bite me? How did you manage that without first asking me—?”
Glass shattered, and a disk of blue light sheered the soft dark hair tufting Coco’s ear. I grabbed her against my chest. A drop of blood hit my forehead. She’d been nicked; the top of her ear bled.
The halo circled around and soared back through the broken window at supersonic speed.
“He’s spotted us.” I shoved Coco to the floor. “Stay down.”
Chapter Five
Again the halo burst through a window, spinning like an insane 33 1/3 rpm flung off the turntable. It reached the back of the warehouse, and spun out through the window.
Zane lunged a look through the window and managed to dodge the return path of the deadly thing.
Now I got it. Granny had told my sister and I that the halo always returned to the thrower. She’d forgotten to mention the part that the thrower must be the original owner. We wouldn’t be in this situation if I’d known that.
My ear burned but I resisted touching it. I didn’t want to know how badly I’d been hurt, but suspected it was just a nick.
I shuffled against a wall, my hand slipping on the bits of crumbled Sheetrock and rubble. I wasn’t about to get in the way. I had a ninja vampire to protect me.
A flash of silver caught my attention. The vampire swung the chain at his side, the brilliant blade catching the moonlight like a beacon. It had something to do with the scar on his face, I guessed. A battle prize won for the price of a devastating wound?
“Watch out, love!”
I ducked to the floor, grinning ear to ear, because I foolishly believed he meant it when he called me love. It was an endearment, nothing more. I think the heady rush of danger, adrenaline and blood loss was making me a little loopy. If not fatally attracted to the baddest of the bad.
Another window crashed. Glass shards rained over my back. The chain swooshed overhead. And the clink of metal against metal. He’d snagged the halo!
I wanted to jump up and hug him, slobber him with kisses and congratulate him on being the hero—
“Don’t move,” he commanded.
—or not.
His boots cracked over the glass. His fingers moved over my back, carefully removing the shards and brushing through my hair and over my skin. “Okay, you can stand now.”
“You got it.” I hugged him, and he allowed it. It wasn’t a return hug, I knew that much. He was just letting it happen. He really believed the monster bit. Poor guy. “You got what you wanted.”
He sighed and pushed me from his embrace. “Not quite yet.”
We eyed the warehouse through the insistent downpour. The angel stood at the broken window. Zane waved the halo mockingly, which earned us a nasty gesture I didn’t think angels were allowed to perform.
Noting my surprise, Zane said, “The Fallen are not like the angels you believe in, love. Nothing fluffy or divine about them. This is yours.” He handed me the halo. “Now that he’s without a weapon, I can go after him.”
He swung up the chain and grabbed the blade. “Got this pretty slicer from a Sinistari demon. The tip is coated in some kind of angel poison. It’s the only thing that’ll kill a Fallen. Gotta shove it up into his glass heart, though, which means I’ll have to get real close. Wish me luck.”
“Wait.” I leaned in and kissed the scar cutting his cheek. “It’s from the blade, right? You went up against a Sinistari?” Granny had told us they are a breed of demons forged specifically to slay the Fallen. “I don’t understand. Why do you need this angel dead?”
“Doesn’t matter what angel, as long as it’s dead.” He huffed out a sigh. “Do we need to do this now?”
The rain beat relentlessly. The angel across the street wasn’t going anywhere.
“Yes, now.”
Why was this bird making it so difficult to like her? She wanted too much. We’d just met. Hell, we were soon to part. I didn’t do attachment. It wasn’t easy when one needed to snack on their partner every once in a while. Made for mistrust and fear, and that’s never good for a relationship.
“You are Anakim,” she said. “They’re the vampire tribe after the angels right now. They think if they can capture a Nephilim, they can drink its blood and strengthen their bloodline. Make it so they can walk in the day like most other vampires.”
“You know your stuff,” I said, stalling, shaking the chain loosely in my grip. The blade banged my leg above the combat boots.
I noticed a fine line of crimson at the corner of her eye and my instincts put me up close to her before I had even decided to move. I tongued the cut. She sighed and bent into my embrace. Giving. Wanting. So vulnerable.
Had my persuasion taken away her free will? I hadn’t used that much on her earlier, and I certainly hadn’t used any right now.
“I like you, Zane,” she said, her fingers finding the vein on my throat and holding over my pulse. “I want to know you.”
“It’s the persuasion. Nothing but.”
She gut-punched me. I doubled at the surprising force of her right hook pummeling below the kidney. Mother of—
“You call that persuasion?” she challenged.
“Apparently not,” I croaked.
“I do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want. You’re not making me do a thing, vampire. So get over it.”
I smirked, loving that if I had to go a few rounds with anyone tonight it was this particular hotheaded chick with the chocolate blood and sinful kisses.
So she wanted me, scars and all? Made a bloke’s shoulders straighten and I lifted my chin a notch.
“Fine. I’m Anakim, or was. After the vamp bit me I joined the tribe because I didn’t know what else there was to do. Besides, I needed some direction on the whole avoiding-the-sunlight thing.”
“The Anakim tribe is weak,” she said. “They won’t stop until they get a Nephilim.”
“Exactly. They—we—got our hands on an angel and his muse recently. It wasn’t pretty. They are trying to breed helpless mortal muses to vicious Fallen. Much as I want to walk in the sun, I won’t do it at a woman’s expense. I’ll stick to the shadows, thank you very much.”
“Noble.”
I shrugged. Monsters didn’t do noble, either.
“So what are you going to do with the dead angel?” she asked.
“One less Fallen is one less horror for all the muses, wouldn’t you say?”
She narrowed her eyes, seeing into a part of me I barely knew. “But you want something more.”
This bird was not stupid.
“Yeah? Well, that’s the part you don’t get to know about. So you take the bloody halo and bring it to your sister. Give her a kiss for me, and I wish you all the luck avoiding her Fallen. Best advice I can give you is to run if you ever see another. Meanwhile, I’m going to trip on over to the angel across the w
ay. He’s only got iron wings and steel muscles to fight me now. Wish me luck.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“This is no longer a partnership, Coco. I let you toddle along—”
“Toddle along! You wouldn’t have found the angel if I hadn’t led you to the muse’s place.”
“A dead muse. Luck happened us upon the angel.”
She did not pout, nor try to cajole my tender slice of heart with big sad eyes. But she did thrust back her shoulders and stare me down. Ninja vampires were supposed to be impervious.
I wasn’t ninja. I possessed some wicked martial skills, learned during my military service. But who’da thought I’d need emotional skills to fend off my most challenging opponent yet? Unfortunately, I hadn’t received that particular training.
“Fine.” I had a feeling I was going to regret this, but it was a better option than simply walking away and never seeing this lovely bird again. “You can stick around, because arguing with you will only piss me off. But you are not going in that building. You stay outside and keep watch, okay?”
She touched me before I even saw it coming. Her palm flattened over my heart. A heart that beat and wasn’t as black as I thought it should be, and a heart that remembered what it was like to be mortal. Mortality had been tough—I’d served the British army a decade in combat and secret black ops missions that had brought me to the brink—but I’d never lost the capacity to need, to want, to pine for love.
Monsters don’t get to love.
Right. Almost forgot.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Six
The evening had taken an odd turn. I’d thought to find the halo, stick it in a brown padded mailer and send if off to my sister, Cassandra. Task complete. Back to the grind. The grind being nine-to-five detail behind the desk at a travel agency.
Adventure being my thing—albeit, on the glossy pages of a travel brochure—I preferred this altered version of the evening. Land in the arms of a scary-looking man, who happens to be a vampire, who happens to bite me—twice. Chase an angel. Dodge angel’s deadly weapon. Win back the halo. The day is saved and the girl gets the guy!