God, her laugh curled his toes.
“I meant, thank you for saying those things. I’ve never been a needy person, but I think everyone wants to know that they at least matter to one person. Now, I have you, and that feels so good. I’ve never had that before, so thank you.”
He nodded, putting his hands in his pocket, not sure of what else to do with them. “Well, what can I say? I’m as sensitive as Micah claims. Anyway, I’m going to go now and let you get some sleep. Reniel will be here in the morning, and then we can make arrangements to go after the Seal. Oh, and we should get you some clothes, huh? You can’t keep running around in Tracy’s things.”
Addison frowned. “That would be cool, thanks. Do you think it’ll be safe to go back to my apartment so I can grab what I need?”
“Sure. With Reniel around, we’ll be much safer. Besides, the demons are sure to know where you are by now, anyway. It’s just a matter of time before they show up here.”
“Okay, that sounds good. Hey, Jack?”
He’d just turned to leave, but he stopped now and faced her. “Yeah?”
“Are you ever going to tell me about Tracy?”
He sighed, one hand braced on the doorknob. He should have kept his mouth shut. She didn’t need to know; it wasn’t important. However, if this girl was going to spend an extended amount of time with him and Micah, she would learn the truth, anyway.
“Micah’s sister,” he confessed. “A Guardian, too. We … lost her.”
Addison came toward him, one hand finding his bicep in a comforting touch. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He tried to shrug it off, but his voice betrayed him when he spoke.
“It’s okay,” he replied, because it’s what you say when someone apologizes for a loss they had nothing to do with.
She shook her head. “I don’t think it is. You called her ‘Micah’s sister,’ but you also said ‘we’ lost her, not ‘he’. I think I’m starting to understand this partnership. You cared about her, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Thanks for telling me. And, Jack?”
“Yes, Addison?”
She gave him a brilliant smile, and for a moment, he forgot about everything but her.
“You matter to me, too.”
Addison stumbled bleary-eyed into the kitchen, still trying to shake off the fog of fatigue. Despite getting a full seven hours of sleep, she was exhausted. It must have been the emotional trauma of the night before that had her feeling like she’d just gone ten rounds with Mohammed Ali.
The smell of coffee had her mouth watering and was a big help in helping her perk up. Jack slept on the couch, she noticed as she padded past the living room, careful to keep silent. The blanket over him had fallen down to his waist, revealing his naked torso. She paused, coming to full wakefulness as she studied his sleeping form.
She did not need to know that he slept without a shirt on. She didn’t need that image tormenting her with ideas of what it might feel like to sleep next to him with that naked chest pressed up against her back. She didn’t need that at all—not after the kiss they’d shared the night before. Now, on top of having to relive that moment over and over again, she would be tortured with knowing every contour of his chest and abdomen.
Hope. It’s what his kiss had given her. Jack didn’t know it yet, but kissing her had been an epic mistake. What was he thinking, giving a girl like her hope that there could ever be someone out there who could love her? It was like dangling sweets in front of a kid not allowed to have candy. The more the kid saw it, the more they wanted it, their lips watering for that elusive, honeyed taste. How long would it take before it got snatched away; before their mission ended, with Jack no longer responsible for her? She’d be alone again, and heartbroken. Not that she thought he’d ever hurt her on purpose; he didn’t have it in him. However, while he’d been elusive when speaking of Tracy the night before, Addison could read between the lines. She saw the things he didn’t say. He was about the job, and nothing else, because experience had taught him this would be the best way. He’d kissed her last night in a moment of weakness, but in the back of his mind, he would always remember how easy it must be to lose someone in this battle he fought every day. That meant nothing could happen between them past the solitary kiss they’d shared—for both their sakes.
Addison wasn’t exactly stable, and she wouldn’t deny that. When they defeated Eligos, and Jack was able to move on with some semblance of a normal life, it should be with someone other than her. Someone whose life didn’t represent a magnet for danger and mayhem. She held no delusions that completing this mission would free her from being targeted by her father and his minions. This was what her life would be, and Jack should have no part in it.
With that in mind, she tore her eyes away from Jack and continued on.
“Didn’t you get enough last night?” Micah quipped as she entered the kitchen. He stood at the stove, the muscles in his massive shoulders bunching and rolling as he stirred something in a large pot. Something else sputtered and bubbled in a pan. Whatever he was cooking smelled like heaven.
Addison scowled at the back of his head as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “Nothing happened last night,” she snapped. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“My neg, my business,” he shot over his shoulder as he sidestepped to a cabinet and opened it, retrieving four bowls. “Good to know you haven’t sunk your claws in him yet.”
“What is it that you don’t like about me, Micah?” she asked. It was time to get everything out in the open. “Do you think I’m not good enough for your friend because of my job, or because of who my father is?”
Micah shrugged as he spooned steaming, cheesy grits into each bowl. “Nothing personal, cher, but you’re a demon and I don’t trust you.”
“I’m not—”
“Yeah, I know,” he interrupted, “you’re a Naphil, which ain’t the same as a demon. Sorry, but in my mind, there ain’t no difference, not after what I been through.”
“You mean, what your sister went through,” she said softly. She didn’t know why, but the fact that Micah seemed to hate her bothered her. If they were going to have to work together, she wanted them to at least reach some kind of understanding. “Jack told me she was a Guardian like you, and that she died. I’m sorry, Micah, for whatever happened to her, but I had nothing to do with it.”
He paused with a skillet in one hand and ladle in the other. The enticing aroma of spicy Andouille sausage and shrimp sautéed with green peppers and onions filled Addison’s nostrils. He speared her with a murderous gaze, his jaw flexing and his nostrils flaring as he took a deep, noisy breath. He lowered his gaze to the bowls and started ladling the sausage and shrimp mixture over the grits.
“I’m only gonna warn you one time, cher,” he whispered, his voice gruff and low. “Don’t ever bring her up again, you hear?”
It seemed she would never get through to Micah, and he’d made it clear she might as well stop trying. “Fine,” she said. “I’m sorry, I just thought … well, whatever’s got you so worked up doesn’t have anything to do with me. If you need someone to take it out on, then you go right ahead, Micah. I’ve been a punching bag my entire life, so you wouldn’t be the first. I can take it.”
Plopping down at the table, she turned to stare out the window, sipping at her steaming coffee. A few seconds later, Micah’s hulking form appeared at her elbow. She glanced up into his hard, green eyes, and guilt she didn’t understand filled her. She didn’t owe him anything just because some demon—or Naphil—had done something to his sister. It hadn’t been her fault. She hadn’t even known she was a Naphil until a few days ago. She hadn’t done anything to him, yet she still felt sorry for the guy.
He slid one of the full, steaming bowls in front of her. “Eat up, cher,” he said. “Reniel will be here soon, and somethin’ tells me we’ll be on the first thing smokin’ to wherever the seal is.”
“You don’
t know? He didn’t tell you?” she asked as she stirred the contents of her bowl.
Micah shrugged as he dug into his own shrimp and grits. “I don’t ask questions; I just do my job.”
They ate together in silence for a few minutes before she spoke again. “This is so good,” she said, indicating her bowl. “The beignets you made yesterday were good, too. Where’d you learn how to cook?”
“My mamere,” he said between bites. “Me and …” he cleared his throat and seemed to rethink his words. “I used to spend summers up the bayou at her house and she taught me everything she knows. That woman makes a mean gumbo.”
“The only thing I know how to cook is ramen noodles,” she quipped.
Micah cringed. “That stuff’ll kill you,” he mumbled.
She laughed. “And fried doughnuts and heavily sauced shrimp and grits won’t?”
“My foot!” he protested. “My papere ate this stuff every day of his life and he lived to see a hundred and ten.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
He shrugged again, before cleaning the bottom of his bowl with his spoon and shoveling the last of his grits into his mouth. “He did, I tell you. And not only did he live that long, so did his manhood, if you get my drift.”
Addison’s stomach quivered with laughter. “Oh, my God!”
“I tell you true, cher,” he insisted. “Matter fact, if I recall, Papere died in the middle of the act.”
“He did not!”
“Did so. Folks ’round here still talk about it. He met his maker while lyin’ underneath his third wife, a gal one-third his age. Of course, to keep up with her, he needed some of them little blue pills to keep him fresh.”
Addison covered her mouth to stifle her guffaws so as not to wake Jack, but Micah had made it damn hard. Her eyes were watering now; she was laughing so hard.
“Well, wouldn’t you know, he took too many of the dang things,” Micah continued, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. “So when he died, that part of him was still alive and kickin’ … standing straight up in the air like a flag pole.”
“Okay,” she managed between laughs. “Now I know you’re lying.”
He grinned. “Cross my heart and hope to die. It’s the God’s honest truth. Once that rigor mortis set in, there was no gettin’ it to go down, either. When we buried him we had to—”
“Dig a hole nine feet deep instead of the usual six,” Jack grumbled as he stumbled into the kitchen. “Isn’t it kind of early for your tall tales this morning, Micah?”
Addison pressed her lips together as Jack moved past them, pulling a white t-shirt over his head as he made a beeline for the coffeepot.
“Runs in the Boudreaux family, podna,” Micah said, standing to collect his empty bowl. “Tall men, tall tales, tall—”
“And that’s enough out of you,” Jack said, cutting him off before he could add something inappropriate. He stirred milk into his coffee and retrieved the bowl Micah had filled for him before joining Addison at the table.
“Good morning,” he said as he slid into the chair beside her. His hand brushed hers as he set his coffee down, and her gaze flew up to his.
Even with the cloudiness of sleep still lingering, his eyes were mesmerizing, shining like liquid titanium in the light of the sun filtering through the window. For a moment, she forgot that she wasn’t supposed to let herself get attached to him. She forgot that her focus was supposed to be on their mission. She forgot everything except for the way it felt to have that smoldering stare set on her, or the fullness of the lips parting for a sip of coffee against hers.
“Hi,” she answered, lowering her eyes back to her bowl.
“Looks like you two are getting along better,” Jack said, nodding toward Micah, who had resumed his usual place in the ratty old armchair, guitar slung across his thighs.
She shrugged. “I don’t think he wants to like me,” she said, her voice low, “but I think I understand why.”
“Be patient with him,” he said. “He’ll come around.”
They finished their breakfast in tense silence, though she could feel Jack’s lingering stare on her. She avoided looking at him, because if she had to look at him, she’d start to hope again. When she finished eating, she left her bowl in the sink with Micah’s and trailed into the living room, plopping onto the sofa.
“What now?” she asked.
“Now we wait for Reniel,” Jack said from the kitchen, from where he washed their bowls and Micah’s cooking utensils.
“Where is that big fairy, anyhow?” Micah mumbled around the guitar pick clenched between his teeth.
“Fairy?”
Addison almost jumped a mile at the voice booming through the small apartment. The front door hung open, and a large beast of a man blocked the sunlight coming through the opening.
“Watch it, Micah,” he admonished as he came into the house and closed the door behind him, “I don’t care how strong you are; I’m always going to be the guy in the room stronger than you.”
Addison studied him as he came closer. He stood at least six feet, five inches tall, as wide in the shoulders as Micah. Her jaw dropped as she studied his features, her mind reeling from the possibility of anyone being as beautiful as him. With a face chiseled as if from stone, he looked like he’d stepped out of a magazine. From the t-shirt straining to confine the bulges of his arms, chest, and shoulders, she could see he had a body to match. Blue eyes sparkled like sapphires, and a headful of thick, blond locks swept the back of his neck. His expression of annoyance faded as he laid eyes on her, and a blinding, white smile appeared.
“You must be Addison,” he said as he extended one large hand to her. “How do you do? I am Reniel.”
She unfolded her legs and stood, her eyes wide and unblinking as she placed her hand in his. For someone supposedly stronger than Micah, he had a gentle touch. Suddenly, her insides seemed to turn to mush, and her fear dissipated, like someone had injected her with a solution of rainbows, happy juice, and chocolate.
“Hi,” she said, her voice a low, breathy whisper. “I’m Addison.”
“He’s doing the thing, podna,” Micah said to Jack, shaking his head as he watched the exchange.
“I only wish to put our new friend at ease,” Reniel shot over his shoulder.
She didn’t miss the way his brows furrowed when he addressed Micah; it would seem she wasn’t the only person he annoyed.
“What thing?” she asked, curious.
“Angels have the ability to flood a person’s soul with peace and calm,” Reniel answered. “I hope you don’t mind. You seemed tense.”
She smiled. “I kind of liked it?”
He released her hand. “You have been told what you must do?”
“Yeah, Jack and Micah told me everything.”
“And you are ready? There aren’t any doubts?”
“Oh, there are plenty of doubts,” she admitted. Something told her Reniel would know if she lied, anyway. “But I do know that I want to do this. If I’m the one who’s been chosen, it must be for a reason. Even if I don’t understand what that reason is.”
“We learned new information when we visited Addison’s mother last night,” Jack said as he entered the living room, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. “Some things we need explained.”
Reniel arched one eyebrow at Jack in response to his clipped tone. Even Addison could sense the tension coming from him, but didn’t understand it.
“What did you discover?” Reniel asked, the cadence and tone of his voice never changing.
Jack huffed in clear annoyance. “You know exactly what we discovered, Reniel. Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Ask questions you know the answer to.” Jack’s voice grew more agitated by the second. “Hold out on us with important information! Whatever lesson you’re trying to teach us, we must be too stupid to learn it, so in the future,
if you could just give us all the info up-front, that would be great.”
Addison gazed back and forth between the angel and Jack, waiting for Reniel to strike Jack down for his misstep. All the Bible stories she remembered from her childhood depicted God as vengeful. She imagined angels must be no different, and wondered how Jack could ever be so bold and talk to one that way.
“Addison is not an ordinary Naphil,” Reniel said, ignoring Jack’s outburst. “You, my dear girl, have the potential to be so much more. Have you given any thought to taking the Guardian’s mark?”
She exchanged a glance with Jack as memories of their conversation the night before came rushing back. Lowering her eyes, she pushed aside thoughts of what had come after. “I haven’t been able to think of much else since last night,” she replied. “But … I’m still not sure yet what I want to do. Do I have to decide now?”
Reniel shook his head. “Of course not. And for the record,” he added, stabbing Jack with a narrowed glare, “I reveal to you what Father allows me to. Perhaps last night’s revelations were a crucial part of yours, as well as Addison’s, journey. I would not have thought you’d need reminding of that.”
Jack turned his back on the angel and stared out at the bustling city street below them. New Orleans was coming alive for the day, and on a Saturday, there was even more activity than usual. “Yeah, well, if things had gone the way we planned, this would be over and I wouldn’t need reminding. We did what you asked, Ren. We found Addison and told her of her purpose. She’s agreed to go along with it. Now what?”
“Now, we fly to New York.”
Jack perked up at that. “New York? The seal is there?”
Reniel shook his head. Stalking back into the kitchen, he retrieved an empty bowl from the cupboard and began filling it with Micah’s grits. “The seal is in Ethiopia, in the care of the Order of the Seal of Solomon … it is an old and ancient knighthood made up of the direct descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.” He glanced up at Addison as he ladled the sausage and shrimp mixture over the grits. “The queen spent a lot of time in King Solomon’s company,” he told her. “The son of David was both wealthy and wise, and the queen was enthralled by him.”
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