by Alisa Woods
By the time he reached the fresh night air in the back, she’d already laid out three of them, and they weren’t looking to get up soon. He’d never seen an angeling in action, just heard the story of them back in France, but the way she gripped the man she was kissing… no, not kissing, but something else… he was entranced. And she was drunk with it, releasing him and staggering back against the wall just to hold herself up. The man lumbered away, and Leksander quickly strode her side. Her head was tipped back, and she was breathing heavily, eyes closed and face awash in joy.
“Are you all right?” he asked, a little breathless with watching her. He’d given cause to women to make that face, but most who he had bedded were less expressive than this angeling even in the throes of the act.
She jerked upright and gaped at him. Then she moved fast and held a hand flat to his chest, pressed against his waistcoat and jacket. He would have flinched away with the suddenness of the movement, but his intrigue held him in place. Her eyes were still half-mast with whatever pleasure she’d been taking. And now that hazy, sultry look was only inches away. He fought the urge to simply kiss her, here and now, the only witnesses three passed-out human cretins who had displeased this angel in white. But he didn’t want to end up on the ground like them, either.
Her eyes widened. “You are fae… and yet not fae. How is this possible?” The frankness of her stare tempted him to kissing again, but he wasn’t that big of a fool.
“I am a dragon prince of the House of Smoke.” Surely an angeling would have heard of the treaty that kept the immortal realm separate from the humans who populated the city… and the alleyway.
Her eyes widened. “My prince.” Then her hand slid up from his clothes and cupped his cheek. She gazed into his eyes with her beautiful blue ones, and suddenly, her flapper dress melted away, leaving the revealing angel one she preferred, the strips of thin white fabric barely restraining her breasts. “My prince,” she whispered again, rising up on her toes and bringing those lips tantalizingly close. His clothes were suddenly modern as well. He had one hand at her waist, the other luxuriating in the softness of her wild-flowing blond hair. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear her words, as if the world had gone silent, devoid of senses except for the strong beat of his heart, the intoxicating nearness of her lips, the silkiness of her hair… she reached to the back of his neck, slender fingers strong and insistent and pulling his ear to her lips. Then sound zoomed its way back in, and she breathed across his skin, “I want to give you a kiss, dragon prince.” And he knew she didn’t mean a life kiss, not the kind she’d given a hundred other men, but the real kind. The kind you give because your heart can’t bear not to…
Leksander awoke with a start, air sucking into his lungs and his body lurching upright in his bed. He was drenched in sweat, and the ceiling of his bedroom bore fresh scorch marks.
His body raged with a tension not released.
Fuck. Even in his dreams, he was cut short before he could get any satisfaction. Just once. Just one fucking time, he wanted to kiss her in that surreal dream state where it seemed real. But only in his wide-awake fantasies did he ever bridge that gap between him and Erelah, the terminal distance that always held them apart. In those fantasies, he kissed her hard, fucked her harder, and she begged for more and more from him. In his wide-awake, pathetic beat-off sessions, she was willing and eager and wanted him above all things in any realm.
But his dreams weren’t fooled. His subconscious knew the truth. And he should face that reality… and start a search for a human woman, one capable of the mating he was duty-bound to make.
He kicked away the tangle of sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His head swam a little, and for a moment, he was back in the dream, at least emotionally. A nameless yearning hung over him, a perpetual frustration. He rubbed his temples to ward off the last vestige of the dream, but this was a real problem. He didn’t want to screw up his next seduction by crying out Erelah’s name when he finally climaxed at the hands of someone else again. This was too important.
He had to exorcise her from his mind as if she were a demon possessing it. And to do that… he probably had to see her again.
He rose up from the bed and stalked to the window, pressing both hands against the cool panes and staring at his pale reflection overlaid on the forested mountains below the keep. He wasn’t sure he could keep his cool if he was actually in her physical presence again. Then again, maybe a good yelling fight would vent his anger. So she didn’t love him. Fine. So she was into this other angeling, Tajael, even though she claimed angelings didn’t fuck each other. Fine. He still needed to tell her, to her face, once and for all, that all these years, all this time they had together… it meant something to him.
Even if it didn’t to her.
He had a real friendship with her if nothing else. And he needed to explain, in no uncertain terms, how that friendship could not continue. He would do what she insisted—find a mate who could love him—but he couldn’t have her coming around or showing up unexpectedly with other angelings or even just flying in by herself. She needed to be gone from his life, and he needed her to know why.
That way he could count on her staying away.
And he could focus on moving on.
He shoved away from the window and dragged himself into the shower. He stayed there far longer than necessary, thinking this through. Did he just want to see her again? Was his messed-up head just making excuses? Maybe. But she’d been the sole focus of every fixation, every fantasy, for so long, it was like she was tattooed on his skin. And if she would never bear his mark for real, then he needed something dramatic to sever that tie.
He needed a breakup.
From a girl he’d never even kissed.
It was insanity, but by the time he hauled his ass out of the shower and dressed, he was certain. A big, showy, dramatic breakup, where he could tell her everything he felt. He could finally be honest. Then when she broke his heart yet again, simply because she didn’t love him in return, he would be ready. Because he already knew. And then he could walk away with his head held high, knowing he’d said all that needed saying, and there was nothing more between them.
It would be hell, but it would finally be over.
He strode from his lair and headed for the throne room. He would need to let down the wards to summon her, and it was easier to do there, where he wouldn’t have to expose the whole keep. Not that he minded having an audience for this. That might be better—if it was public, there was less chance of him losing his nerve and going back to her like he’d already done a dozen times. She was an addiction he needed to declare public abstinence from.
Still, he was relieved to see the throne room empty when he arrived.
If he were reaching through magic space to summon the Queen of the Summer Court, or even the Winter Court, he could access his primary fae magic to make the call. Angels were a different story. Normally, the House of Smoke would rather stay clear of them—their Dominion wasn’t covered by the treaty, and they had their own agenda with the humans, although it was benign at worst and helpful at best. It had been centuries since demons had roamed the earth in significant numbers—even then, dragons and angeling slayers didn’t work together so much as coordinate their territories. He and Erelah were unique in their friendship… and perhaps that was the problem. Dragons and angels were never meant to be friends.
Regardless, they’d worked out a way to keep contact so he could summon her when he wished. On her side, she could easily find him when she wanted to see him—moving through space and time was a gift of her angel blood—but for him to reach her was another matter. It wasn’t as if they had cell coverage in Markos’s Dominion of light. So she’d gifted him with a small piece of crystal. It appeared to be made of the same clear material as the structures in the Dominion that was Erelah’s home, so he figured it was connected somehow. Regardless, he simply had to reach to it with his fae senses and place a call for he
r, so to speak.
Would she even answer? He wasn’t sure. But she’d never been the one to hold grudges against him, even when he lost his patience with her and stormed off.
So when Markos appeared in front of him in a flash of light, Leksander’s heart sank.
“Prince of the House of Smoke.” Markos greeted him with a small tip of his head. His wings spread nearly the span of the throne room, and he was barely dressed in a short toga, per usual. “Of what service can I be to your House?”
“I wish to speak with Erelah.”
There was a slight hesitation, but Leksander saw it. “She is unavailable,” Markos said. “What assistance can I provide?”
Unavailable? That was… odd. Was she actually going to avoid him? Or was Markos standing in the way? He had answered what was supposed to be a direct line to Erelah.
“This won’t take long,” Leksander said with a pinched look that warned Markos not to interfere if that was what was happening. “But I need to speak with her before I can proceed with finding my mate.” Technically true. Markos could guess at why that would be.
The hesitation was much longer this time. Markos studied him for a long moment… and then just twisted away in a flash of light.
Leksander sighed. Fucking angels. Would it kill them to use common human courtesy? He waited, expecting Markos back any moment, but when the seconds stretched to nearly a minute, Leksander was ready to call him back and have it out with him.
Then Erelah suddenly appeared in front of him, a pulse of angel light preceding her.
“Erelah, I just wanted—” He stopped short when what he was seeing caught up to the prepared speech in his brain.
She was covered in blood.
“What the hell?” He stumbled to her side, hands uselessly floating the air around her. She had some kind of gash through her toga that nearly rendered it useless as clothing. The scarlet blood had drenched the flimsy fabric above and below. As he quickly scanned the rest of her, he saw her drooping wings were smeared with blood across one. “Erelah, what happened?”
Her face was always pale, but now it was a horrifying grayish color. “Shadow angel,” she gasped. “I’ll be fine. Eventually.” She stopped to swallow. “Markos said you had need of me.”
“No.” His chest felt like it was turning inside out. “You have need of me.” He eased closer and slipped an arm around her waist. It was strange—in all the time he’d known here, they’d never actually touched—but she allowed it, putting an arm around his shoulder and leaning on him. “Come sit,” he said, urging her toward the throne. She went with him, but he didn’t like the weakness in her step. At all.
She eased into the chair, and he released her. “The diminishment will pass,” she said, but not like she really believed it. “My light will fight the darkness. It will win out.” The more she said it, the less he believed her.
“Let me heal you.” He shifted a single talon and sliced clean across his palm. The blood welled up immediately.
“Leksander!” she hissed at him. “Do not injure yourself!” She was pissed.
“It’s nothing.” He scowled. “You know that. Now let me…” He moved to place his hand on her belly where the gash seemed still open and raw, but she cringed away. “Erelah, dammit! Let me heal you.”
“It will…” She was staring at his weeping hand with wide eyes. “I will…”
“Yes, you will have a little of my dragon blood in you. And fae as well. But you’re not just angel, you’re human. In fact, it’s the human part of you that’s bleeding. You’ll be fine.” He wasn’t entirely sure of this, actually—what the hell kind of wound was this?—but his need to fix her overwhelmed his mind and drove him on. Fucking hell, she was hurt! That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to her. Not ever. She was an angeling.
He fell to one knee before her on the throne and begged her with his eyes. “Please, Erelah, let me do this. I’ll pull back if it hurts you in any way.”
At that, she stiffened. “I am not afraid, Leksander.”
That forced a smile through the pain. “I know.”
She frowned, but she slowly moved her hand away from the gash.
Gently, so gently, because he wasn’t at all sure how this would work, he slipped his hand past the blood-soaked tatters of her toga and flat against the gaping wound. He eased closer, just to be near her. She gasped and gripped his arm, but he could feel it, too. The extraordinary heat of her skin—she was hotter than any dragon to the touch!—and the surge of even more heat as his dragon blood mixed with hers in the wound. Plus his runes skittered down his arm and pooled at his hand. But that wasn’t what had him releasing a slow, shuddering breath.
There was pleasure in their touch. Not just the fulfillment of some fantasy he’d had about the silky smoothness of her skin, but an actual surge of magic. Her angel power surged through the contact and rebounded with his dragon essence. The fiery touch of fae in his blood added a certain edge to it—as if their blood might fight instead of heal—but it wasn’t too much. It just made the whole thing rage hotter and tighter in his belly.
Plus it was working. She tipped her head back on the throne and held his hand to her flesh, gripping it now and keeping him flush as his magic healed her. The gray pallor of her face was replaced by a tinge of pink. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was open, and air was working in and out of her chest. He could feel the wound stitching closed under his palm and the inky stench of darkness leaving her. Whatever this shadow angel was that had somehow wounded her, its presence was leaving. And the look of relief and breathless pleasure on her face was the most erotic thing he had ever seen.
When it was done—and he could feel it complete in the vibrating hum of wholeness under his touch—she sat up straight again. Her eyes were still at half-mast with the pleasure, and he couldn’t help himself.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
Leksander’s lips pressed to hers, and she didn’t want to flee.
That was the first revelation.
The next was how gentle he was. A tender touch of his flesh to hers. The softness of his lips as they moved. She was a rock by comparison—an unyielding, unmoving rock. But this was nothing like Tajael’s forced kiss, the one that flooded life into her and rendered her senseless. And this wasn’t her ecstatic life kiss given to the countless humans she’d brought back from the edge of death.
This was gentle and sweet and insistent.
It thawed the freeze that had taken hold of her, and her lips moved with his.
They were kissing.
She put her hands to his face and held it, fingers splayed. Everywhere they touched, there was a surge of… something. Connection? Power? Her angel nature leaped at the contact, and the wound in her belly, now sealed with dragon and fae magic, sang with a need that somehow tightened her everywhere and yet loosened everything. She pressed harder against his lips, mimicking his movements. He made a noise that sounded like far-off thunder. Then his lips parted under hers, and his tongue swiped a hot line along her lips. She opened to him and parried back, her tongue fighting suddenly with his as to which could touch more and in which way and how strong… the rush of pleasure started low in her belly and rushed up to her face, suffusing her with a heat that might burn her if it blazed any hotter—
She jerked back and stared, wide-eyed and breathless.
Shame burned her face. She had been wanton and wild and lost in that kiss. She’d never done anything like it, never felt anything like it, and with a heart-stopping fear, she realized how dangerously close she’d just come to her Fall.
“Erelah…” Leksander’s eyes were gleaming with joy.
What in the name of all the Virtues had she done?
Her face filled with the horror of it. She couldn’t help it, but she could see him react to her change in expression.
It caused him pain.
Oh, Angels of Heaven, how wretched a creature she was!
“Erelah, it’s okay,” Leksander said,
but of course, it was not. “I need to tell you something—”
“No!” She shoved her hand out, palm forward, to force him away. She pressed her back into the throne chair. If she could climb backward out of it without chancing to touch him again, she would. But she was trapped. “Do not say it.” Her voice was ragged.
His pain twisted into anger. “I am going to say it! It needs to be said.”
“Don’t!” Angels of light, how could she fix this? Truth. That was the only way. “Don’t say you love me. Don’t say you want me for a mate! Because… because I can’t, don’t you see? I can’t be that. You must know this.”
He eased back from the throne and the tight spot where he had trapped her with his presence, and his shoulders slumped. His face held such pain, she would think he was dying, had she seen it on a human in a dingy Seattle alley. But this was all her doing. She had thought she could come here and just soothe whatever ailed him, but no… she had kissed him! No matter that he had started. She had reacted with pleasure and need and all the things that would only feed this desire he had for something between them. All while knowing what he felt!
There weren’t words for that Sin, but she knew it was horrible.
The pain that lived on his face was all her doing.
“You should rightly be angry,” she tried, but he cut her off with a look.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that.” And he was angry. “Don’t tell me you felt nothing with that kiss.”
She could say nothing of the kind. “That matters not!” She curled her fists and beat her frustration on the arms of the throne. Then she stood and towered over him, still bent on one knee. “I am not a suitable mate. I cannot do the things…” She struggled for the words, then gave up and dragged her gaze away from the hope in his pale blue eyes. The things. Sexual things. Wild things. More of those kisses that tightened her belly and sent her careening into a need like nothing she’d felt before. She would lose herself in that, and for what? She couldn’t give him the True Love he needed to fulfill the treaty. It was impossible. She wrenched her gaze back to him as he rose up from the floor, now towering over her.