“I had no idea you were being blamed.” Nathaniel ran a hand over his head. “I didn’t ask them to cover for me.”
“You didn’t have to. The fools lined up three deep to jump on the funeral pyre in your place all by themselves.” He scowled. “Even my son, the only other person who could vouch for me, has been conveniently out of contact since his run-in with the seraphs. Not that he would ever admit what he knew one way or the other. The runt would cut out his heart before betraying you.” Then his expression turned speculative, as if he’d only realized something. “I wonder what Delphi would think if he learned about his gofer’s defection?”
Nathaniel’s jaw clenched. “Leave Bran out of this.”
“Or you’ll what? Go to Delphi in his place?” Saul’s silky laughter left him cold. “Then your human would be left alone, unguarded, and I think we both know what happens when mortal lovers are left behind while we grovel at the master seraph’s feet.”
A twinge in Nathaniel’s chest spiked fresh foreboding in his heart. He did know.
He had trouble understanding how his brother stomached making such a warning after what happened to Mairi. Though Saul’s delivery promised the threat hadn’t been idly made. Nathaniel forced himself to look at Saul, to really see the man he had become. Too late, Nathaniel realized the danger this man posed to those he held dear.
The brother he’d given up his sword and station in Heaven to protect was no longer present in any part of Saul. His goodness, his joy, met a hard death long ago. Only now did Nathaniel realize his integrity had also withered and died. “What do you want from me?”
“The soul you owe for starters. Where is it?”
“I can’t say.” Admitting it was Chloe was tantamount to signing her death warrant.
“Oh, I think you can.” Saul scanned the brick building beside them. “And I think you will.”
Fear tightened Nathaniel’s chest, and he cursed his foolishness at ever leaving his shears.
Saul already had what he wanted. He just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Walking a slow circuit of her apartment, Chloe couldn’t put a finger on her problem. After chewing her remaining fingernails to the quick, she moved on to her lips. Her palms dampened and her chest tightened. For the first time in days, she had resorted to popping a pill right off the bat this morning. Still the feeling wouldn’t shake loose.
Something was wrong.
Turning a slow circle, she took stock of her apartment and found small comfort in the familiar routine. Everything was as it should be. Nothing was out of place. She wasn’t alone. Neve was downstairs and Nathaniel…
With a groan, she hoped last night hadn’t turned her into one of those clingy girlfriends men would chew off their own arm to escape. It’s not as if she had a ring chart out ready to size Nathaniel when he walked through the door. And she hadn’t allowed her heart to clog her throat when he clarified they were making love, though she’d almost choked on the implications. Every word had proved he cherished her; every touch showed he desired her. Her sigh blew still-damp hair from her face.
Looking for any distraction, she went to the window and glanced down the street. A flash of dark caught the corner of her eye and brought the taste of her pill back up her throat. Stumbling back, her gaze bounced between her bathroom, where she stored her sanity in amber vials, and the staircase, where an odd sense of urgency beckoned her downward.
Her feet chose the steps for her. Long before her brain protested their decision, she stepped into the store and ran smack dab into Neve.
“Good morning, sunshine.” She caught Chloe by the arm and steadied her as her probing stare raked her, seeming to hunt for boo-boos of the emotional or physical kind.
“Hey.” Chloe made herself stop and talk. “I’m really sorry about sleeping in.”
“It’s no problem at all.” A frown tugged at her mouth. “You okay? You seem wired.”
She felt wired. Strung tight and ready to snap. “Have you seen Nathaniel?”
“Um, I saw him an hour or so ago when he passed through on his way out.” Neve held out a book and someone, a customer Chloe hadn’t even noticed, took it from her hand. “He didn’t say where he was going. Why? Is everything okay with you two?”
“We’re good.” Her stomach cramped with dread so hard she rubbed the sick knot. “He went to pick up breakfast. I thought he would be back by now, that’s all.”
“Chloe?” Neve pulled her hand away and they both watched it tremble. “What’s wrong?”
She snatched her arm back. “Nothing is—”
“Don’t even try to sell me that load of bull.” Neve grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’re pale and you’re shaking like a leaf. Something is wrong and you’re not leaving my sight until you tell me what’s going on.”
“I… I forgot to take my pills before bed.” The lie sounded good enough Chloe expanded on it. “My head is all over the place right now. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
“Do you need to sit down?” With Chloe tucked under her arm, Neve turned her toward her office before she argued or did something crazy, like knock her aside and bolt for the door.
“Excuse me, miss?” A round gentleman with circular wire–framed glasses tapped Neve on the shoulder. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I wonder if you could help me find a book I’m searching for? It’s somewhat rare and I can’t find it on the shelf.”
Chloe recognized the stout man as a dealer, one of her regulars. “Go help him.”
“Give me one minute, sir, and I’ll be right with you.” Neve turned her full attention back on Chloe. “I don’t think I should leave you alone like this. Why don’t you go back upstairs? As soon as Nathaniel gets back, I’ll send him up to you.”
“No, I’ll head to my office and grab a chair and a bottle of water.” She smiled until her cheeks hurt. “I took a pill before I headed down, so relief should kick in soon. I need somewhere cool and quiet until then.” She grasped Neve’s elbow and steered her toward Mr. Owlish Impatience.
“If Nathaniel takes much longer,” Neve promised, “I’ll come check in on you.”
“Fine. Great.” Chloe gave her a shove. “I’ll be waiting.”
The pull to find Nathaniel made her legs shake with the effort of standing still. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she inhaled sharp enough she got a stitch in her side.
Outside wasn’t an option, not alone. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t do it without him.
“Nathaniel, where are you?” She could make it a little longer. He would come back. They would eat breakfast and laugh about how silly she had acted.
Then she heard Nathaniel… inside her head. “Don’t leave the store.”
Chloe tripped over her feet. No, no, no. That was not his voice. Not in her head. He had to be close. She must have overheard him. That’s all. Nothing crazy. Perfectly normal. He was probably standing on the porch or something. Feeling a smidgen calmer, Chloe smoothed shaking hands down her shirt.
“Go to your room. Wait for me there. Please, Chloe.” Nathaniel’s voice sent pain drilling through Chloe’s skull until her brain wanted to leak out of her ears. “Listen to me. I’ll explain everything later.”
Her jaw dropped. This couldn’t be real. People couldn’t talk mind to mind. It was impossible. A quick glance proved no one else’s head had lifted or eyes turned in her direction. He’d all but yelled at her somehow, yet no one had moved a muscle. They hadn’t heard him.
But she had. She knew his voice. Recalling all the times he had pulled the words from her mouth, she accepted something greater than her understanding was at work here. She could figure it out later. Right now, he needed her. How she knew mattered less than what she was going to do about it.
Focused on Nathaniel, picturing his face in her mind, she cleared all thought and pushed outward, “Please, tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.”
“No.” His reply was a hard slap of pain betwee
n her ears. “Stay with Neve. Don’t—” The words ended on a grunt of pain.
Her frantic eyes spotted Neve. Still with the customer, her back turned. A path through the handful of meandering customers parted as if by divine providence.
Nathaniel was outside; she knew it. He was hurt; she felt it.
Whatever lurked beyond that door made the hairs on the base of her neck stand at attention. Raw energy danced over her skin. The pull of something other kept her walking past the point of no return. Her hand closed over the knob and the door opened on her worst nightmare come to life.
Saul rested a hand at his hip, taunting Nathaniel with the copper dagger sheathed there. “It’s not a difficult question.” He stroked the handle. “Where is the soul?”
“It’s my responsibility,” Nathaniel said. “I’ll handle the situation.”
“Like you have so far?” Saul scanned the windows overhead. “I don’t think so. Besides, I’m here now. It seems rude to leave without at least saying hello to your mortal.”
“You have every right to be upset with me”—his jaw clenched—“but you will leave her out of this.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Saul said. “Don’t worry. I’ll give your lover the same consideration you gave mine.” He resumed tapping the hilt of his dagger. “What I don’t get is why the risk? Why put off a collection you’ve done countless times before this one? Was the soul special?” He chuckled mirthlessly. “Did you get a little misty-eyed thinking of it while drafting the other damned souls to weave the soul cloth?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Saul wheeled on him. “Then tell me what it was like. What is worth my neck and yours? Why shouldn’t I walk right up to Delphi and turn your ass in?” He shoved Nathaniel. “Like when you turned me in to Gavriel.”
“I didn’t—”
Laughter from a couple walking down the street bounced through the alley to where they stood. Nathaniel waited for the mortals to pass. “We can’t do this here. It’s too public.” And he wanted their fight taken away from Chloe.
“Oh, I can fix that.” Saul caught Nathaniel by the neck with one hand while the other fished out his pendant and broke the chain.
Shivers danced across Nathaniel’s skin as his spiritual form shed its human shell. He ripped the pendant from his brother’s grasp before he faded to immateriality and tucked the chain carefully away.
Saul yanked his own pendant over his head, then flattened his wings against his back. “There. Now we have a private room for two.” He faded to a solidified mass of black matter. “You always were a self-righteous bastard. Always thought you were better than me. First as Gavriel’s favored archangel, then as Delphi’s precious Weaver.”
“I lied for you,” Nathaniel snarled. “Gavriel asked me where you were and I lied to his face because I loved you and wanted your happiness above my own.”
“You were a Goody-fucking-Two-shoes who couldn’t keep his nose in his own business.” Saul’s eyes glittered. “Your bleeding heart practically led Gavriel to Mairi.”
“She sought me out,” he said, “not the other way around.”
“She didn’t know any better,” Saul growled. “You did.” He pointed his finger. “Gavriel couldn’t sneeze without you handing him a tissue. So of course he noticed when you came to Earth, to her door, without his sanction.”
“I had no choice,” Nathaniel said. “Bran was dying.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “She begged me to find someone who could help, and I did. He is my nephew. How could I say no?”
“You should have said no the same way I did when she asked me,” he thundered. “Bran was born sick. He was always sick. We had no reason to think he would live past his first year. If she had waited, we could have had more children.” He threw up his hands. “I thought since you’ve taken a human lover you might… but you don’t understand.” His voice broke. “She was my life. Not Heaven. Not Bran. Her. And because of you, Gavriel took her from me.”
“No one could have known her village would be raided during our sentencing,” he said softly. The two of them had invited punishment by breaking Gavriel’s law, and justice had swooped down upon them at the worst possible time. Nathaniel ached for his brother, for a past neither could change. “It was one night—”
“—that changed everything.” His vacant eyes were locked somewhere in their far distant past. “I still smell the smoke. At night, when I close my eyes, I still see her burned body.” He shuddered. “If she had left Bran, they never would have found her hiding place.”
Instead, a sickly child’s cries had led them right to her. She had been brutalized and burned. Bran had escaped unscathed. Mairi had done that, Nathaniel knew, protected her son at all costs because she had loved him, and loved Saul, beyond reason.
There was nothing left to say that hadn’t been said a thousand times before, and though he meant the words, Nathaniel knew they rang hollow. “I understand your pain.” And he wondered if hatred wouldn’t eat a hole in his gut over time as well when he lost Chloe.
“Not yet you don’t.” Saul’s focus snapped into place. “But you will.”
Saul’s first punch caught Nathaniel by surprise.
He rocked back on his heels, reeling from the unexpected assault.
Nathaniel dodged Saul’s next blow. He ducked low, then slammed his fist under his brother’s jaw. Saul snarled from the pain and staggered backward while Nathaniel regrouped. When Saul charged, he was ready.
“I’m coming to you.” The clarion sound of Chloe’s thought sliced through Nathaniel and the distraction cost him. He grunted with pain as Saul sank his shoulder into his chest and sent them sprawling across the ground.
“No.” He panted as he shoved Saul aside. “Stay inside where it’s safe.”
But it was too late. His ears rang when a metal door cracked against brick.
He saw Chloe’s knees give out in a slow slide down to the concrete steps.
A static click and Nathaniel felt the deep resonation of Saul’s harvester bond snap into place. The connection was instinctual, automatic, and now he, Saul, and Chloe were snared in the same telepathic bond. Nathaniel reeled from the sensory overload.
Never had he linked with another harvester. Their bonds were one-sided, meant to trap prey, not be ensnared by one another.
Chloe’s fear amplified the chaotic chatter in Nathaniel’s head, fed him images ripped from Saul’s mind. Her bond with Nathaniel had made her a conductor for Saul, and now Nathaniel staggered as his brother’s suffocating rage boiled under his skin.
Saul hissed in shock and leaped to his feet. “She’s the mark.”
Chloe flinched at his voice, and hot, sick fear radiated through their bond in waves.
Saul watched with a vicious, mocking smile. “Why, pet, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you could hear us.” He wiggled his pinky in his ear. “What’s that? I didn’t catch your answer.”
Her terror-filled gaze swung between Nathaniel and Saul.
“You can see us as well?” With a sharp flap of his wings, Saul took to the air, sailing over Nathaniel’s head to land beside Chloe. From her seat on the steps, she pressed her back to the brick wall and inched away from him.
“Come here, Chloe. Give me your hand.” Nathaniel reached for her. “I won’t hurt you.”
Doubt creased her brow. She hesitated, and Saul took advantage.
He stroked her hair, her cheek. “Ah. I thought so.” Marvel lit his face when his hand touched skin rather than air. His head shot up, finally concerned they might be interrupted. “Let’s find a better place to get acquainted.”
“Saul—” Nathaniel lunged for his brother.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Saul crushed her to his chest, squeezing until her scream stopped in her throat. “You know how easily mortal toys are broken.” To Chloe, he said, “Come on, pet, let’s go play.”
His wings spread as he glided the several yards between the door and the rear o
f the building. With a bloody smile cast over his shoulder, Saul taunted Nathaniel, daring him to follow with the look.
Nathaniel ran, skidded around the corner, and found Chloe pressed against the rear wall. Wide-eyed, she gasped for breath through the hold Saul had on her throat.
Saul glanced over. “I knew you were hiding something, but I never imagined your secret was anything so interesting.”
“Release her, Saul.” Nathaniel crept closer. “Your quarrel is with me.”
“Is that what you want?” Saul’s voice dripped with pity. “You want to go to Nathaniel?”
Chloe vibrated with alarm and flooded Nathaniel with her anxiety through their bond. Her wild eyes latched on his golden form. “Nathaniel?” Her tone pleaded with him not to answer.
“I am so sorry, meira.”
Her eyes squeezed closed. “This isn’t real. This is one of my dreams.” She shivered visibly. “Nathaniel isn’t… he can’t be…”
Saul pretended compassion. “You have no idea.”
“Enough.” Nathaniel locked gazes with Saul, but he stood his ground. “Release her.”
“Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret. Stand back.” Saul clamped his hand over Chloe’s jaw and jerked her head backward until her spine bent; then he tapped the end of her nose. “Good girl. No screams. No struggles. If anyone comes back here on your account, I will kill them. Understand?”
She couldn’t speak through the hold he had on her. Her answer flowed through their connection, pinging from Saul to Nathaniel and making Nathaniel’s head ache. “I understand.”
“Good.” Saul shot her a patronizing grin. “Now keep quiet or I’ll find something to occupy that pretty mouth of yours.”
Nathaniel gritted his teeth. Another step closer, one more step and he could…
Saul grinned. “I see now I wasn’t the only one who believed Reuel, though I admit your attempt appears more stable than mine.” His attention turned from Nathaniel to Chloe, eyes gleaming. “How does she work, I wonder…?” He cupped her mouth and positioned his hand over her heart. The tips of his fingers pressed through skin and her mental scream stunned Saul.
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