The Redemption Series

by Melynda Price

  At least the call today had indeed confirmed she was with Liam. But Olivia had also said she couldn’t come home, which meant she was in danger. Her efforts to help explain that to Mitch hadn’t gone well. He was upset she’d left him, not that she could blame the guy. But he clearly wasn’t dealing with this well. And nothing she could do or say was going to make this any easier for him. In the last twenty-four hours, it seemed he’d been on a mission to self-destruct. If they hadn’t been friends before this, she’d have walked away without so much as a sayonara. But they were friends—good friends—and she truly felt bad he’d gotten caught up in the Liam/Olivia drama, because if Liam truly was back, there was absolutely no question who she’d pick.

  Ashley snatched up the phone on its fifth and final ring. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ashhh.”

  “Mitch? Is that you?” She couldn’t be sure, because the guy on the other end sounded completely wasted.

  “Yeah. I beat a hide.”

  “You what?”

  “I neeeed a riiide.”

  Having him enunciate it didn’t really help much. “Did you say you need a ride?”

  “Yeees! Dammit!”

  “Then why didn’t you just say so?” she snapped. Ashley sighed and glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand. “It’s almost one a.m., Mitch. Where are you?”

  “Wwwaterwwworks.”

  “All right. Fine. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes. I just gotta get dressed first. Do me a favor while you’re waiting and drink a cup of coffee, will ya? You need to sober the hell up.”

  “Den wasa point in drinkin’ a bottle a Jaack?”

  Did he say a bottle of Jack? Holy shit, this guy needed to get a grip before he killed himself. “I’ll be right there, Mitch.” Ashley hung up without waiting for a response. She probably wouldn’t have understood it, anyway.

  Mitch was sitting out on the front step when Ashley pulled into the parking lot of Waterworks. He stood up when he saw her and stumbled forward, catching himself on the railing before nose-diving off the steps. She huffed in frustration and climbed out of the Mustang, running over to him before he took a face-plant into the gravel.

  “Heeey, Ash,” he greeted, as she grabbed his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder while sliding hers around his waist.

  “Jeez, you’re heavy,” she complained, trying not to think of the awkwardness of having Mitch’s rock hard body pressed up against hers.

  “Sorrry…” he slurred.

  They stumbled up to her car and she opened the passenger door, dumping him inside. After a quick check to make sure nothing was hanging out, she slammed it shut. Ashley hopped into the driver’s seat and took her frustration out on the accelerator.

  “Easy…You tryin’ to make me siiick?” he groaned, lolling his head to look over at her.

  Ashley sighed. “Mitch, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. Look at you. Olivia would be disgusted—”

  “No more ‘n I am with heeer.” Even drunk, the anger and betrayal in his voice was unmistakable.

  “Look, she won’t be gone forever. She’s gonna come back eventually, right? And is this want you want her find?”

  He scoffed.

  “Come on, you gotta find a less self-destructive way to channel your grief. You can’t keep putting your body through this.”

  Mitch didn’t answer her, and for a moment, she wondered if he passed out. But when she glanced over at him, he was watching her with a surprising amount of clarity for as trashed as he obviously was. She, too, remained silent for the rest of the drive back to his place. When she pulled into his driveway and parked the car, he made no effort to get out.

  She internalized the sigh that had been a second from passing her lips and climbed out of the car. Walking around to the passenger side, she opened the door and reached inside to help Mitch out. He grabbed her hand for leverage and slid the other under her arm and around her back. “Come on, let’s go,” she said, leaning back and using her counterweight to help drag him out of the car. As he crawled out, he leaned on her—heavily—and at six-two, two-hundred pounds, the guy was no lightweight. He verily dwarfed her petite five-four, one-twenty pound frame. In fact, they probably looked ridiculous stumbling up to the house together, nearly falling more than once.

  “Key,” Ashley snapped when they reached the door. Bracing him with her hip, she held out her hand.

  “Pocket,” he replied, making no move to get it.

  Seriously? Huffing impatiently, she shoved her hand in his front pocket and got lucky. By the whiskey grin on his face, one would think he was the one getting lucky. Fumbling to get the key into the lock, she finally managed to shove the door open and dragged Mitch inside.

  “Damn, Mitch, you weigh a ton,” Ashley complained.

  “It’s aaall muscle,” he slurred.

  Was he…flirting with her? Ashley rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it is.” And it was. The guy was nothing but solid muscle and she knew it, because a very large amount of that brawn was crushed intimately against her. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a very muscular part of his private anatomy digging into her waist right now. Focus on Olivia… “You know Olivia’s coming back, right?”

  “I’m not thinkin’ ‘bout Olivia right now.”

  That’s what she was afraid of. Ashley didn’t miss the contemptuous undercurrent in the way he said her name. Mitch was hurting, and the alcohol only distorted his already less than stellar judgment, bringing his old tendencies back to life. Before Olivia, Mitch had been a huge player.

  She kicked the front door closed behind her and was about to send him to his room to sleep off his drunk when she remembered the flight of stair separating him from his bed. There was no way he was going to make it up those stairs without breaking his neck. “All right, Mitch, we gotta get up these stairs, so you’re going to have to lean on this railing instead of me, because I can’t carry you up them.”

  She unwound him from her grasp and made sure he had a good hold of the railing before getting behind to prevent him from toppling backwards. “Come on, let’s go,” she encouraged, nudging him up the stairs.

  He did all right—considering. Only twice did he fall back into her, but she wedged her shoulder against his ass and shoved him forward again. Once they hit the top of the stairs, Mitch braced himself against the wall to wait for her. He looked like a jumper hugging the brick wall of a twenty-story building. If it wasn’t two a.m. and if she wasn’t so pissed off at him, she would have laughed. He looked ridiculous standing there like that.

  “You want to go to the bathroom before you go to bed?” Please say no, because there was no way in hell he was coordinated enough to work that button and zipper, and she was not going to whip it out for him.

  “Just wanna to go to bed and sleep,” he slurred, using the back of his head and shoulders to push off the wall.

  Thank God. She caught him around the waist and ushered him into the bedroom, grumbling, “You’re sooo going to owe me for this. You know that, right?”

  “Add it to my taaab,” he replied glibly.

  As they walked into his room, she noticed the window was still open from this morning. Crickets serenaded them as the crisp night air wafted in. They stopped beside the bed, and Mitch attempted to stand on his own. He reached behind his head and grabbed ahold of his shirt, attempting to pull it off over this head. He knocked himself off balance and stumbled forward. She caught him as he struggled to free himself from his shirt in an uncoordinated battle he was quickly losing.

  “Stop. Just stop,” she said, trying to steady him.

  Mitch froze with his shirt half-on and half-off.

  “Stand still.” She braced her hip against him and wrapped one arm around his side, splaying her hand against his back for support. She used the other to untangle his shirt and pull it over his head. As his shirt came off, his balance shifted and he stumbled forward, knocking her back. Ashley let out a startled yelp as the back of her knees hit the mattr
ess and buckled. Her feet left the floor as she fell back, landing on the mattress with a bounce. Mitch’s hard, half-naked body quickly followed, landing on top of her. The air left her lungs in a whoosh as his heavy weight squished her into the mattress.

  As she struggled to catch her breath, he made no effort to get off her. His jean-clad arousal dug intimately close to the inside of her thigh. She could feel the ripped muscles of his abdomen against her stomach, the weight of his bare chest pressing against her breasts. His radiating heat that would have sparked a fire in her core had this not been her best friends fiancé lying on top of her.

  When she looked up at Mitch, she was surprised the see him staring down at her with a surprising amount of sobriety. He propped his weight onto his elbow, giving her a small measure of breathing room, and stared down at her, making no other attempt to move. Perhaps she should have insisted at this point, but she was momentarily stunned to find herself trapped beneath him while he watched her with that look a guy got in his eye right before—

  Mitch’s mouth came down on hers with alarming accuracy and skill. She gasped in shock, and he stole what little breath remained in her lungs as his tongue swooped in and assaulted hers. He tasted like whiskey.

  She turned her head to the side, breaking contact, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because his lips moved to her throat. His tongue skated over her flesh as he nipped that sensitive spot on her neck as if he’d known right where it was. No doubt, plenty of experience had taught him well.

  “Mitch, stop...” It was a panted protest, but a refusal nonetheless. And one he ignored.

  “It should have been you, Ash…” he whispered against her throat. “I should have chosen you.” A second later, his hand slipped under her shirt, and little alarms went off in her head.

  “But you didn’t. You chose my best friend,” she argued, grabbing his arm to pull his hand off her breast. “I’m serious, Mitch. Stop!”

  “I know you want this, Ash. No one has to know.”

  He kissed her again, his grip on her breast tightening, refusing to budge as his thumb expertly brushed over her nipple.

  Ashley jerked her head to the side. “I’d know, and you’d know. Trust me, Mitch, you’d regret this in the morning.”

  When he shook off her hand and forced his under her bra, a burst of panic erupted inside her chest. Oh shit! What if he didn’t stop? A moment after the fear seized her and the thought raced through her mind, she felt Mitch’s weight being ripped off her. A second later, a loud crash filled the room.

  Ashley scrambled off the bed to find Mitch lying on the floor in a crumpled ball across the bedroom. A body-sized groove dented the sheetrock halfway up the wall. His pained groan confirmed he was still conscious—barely. “Holy shit, Mitch! Are you all right?” she asked, running over to him.

  “Jeez, Ash, you didn’t have to hit me,” he complained, rubbing the side of his jaw as he struggled to sit up.

  I didn’t… Her chest tightened into a knot. “Well, you should have stopped when I told you to. Give me your hand,” she said, reaching down to pull him up off the floor. He leaned on her even more heavily than before. Hopefully, that hit he took to his jaw knocked some sense into him.

  “I’m sorry, Ash,” Mitch moaned, falling back into bed.

  “All right, Mitch. Are you listening to me? Look at me so I know you’re hearing the words coming out of my mouth.” He cracked one eye open, the other was already starting to swell shut. Shit, how many times had Balen hit him? “Because you’re wasted, I’m going to give you this one—once. But if you ever come onto me again, I’m telling Olivia. I’m your friend, Mitch, not your fuck buddy. Don’t confuse the two again. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal,” he slurred, groaning as he rolled over, giving her his back.

  She started to walk away and stopped when he said, “I wasn’t lying when I said I wished I would have fallen in love with you. At least then I wouldn’t have a supernatural ex-boyfriend to contend with.”

  I wouldn’t bet on that... Ashley thought, sighing heavily. “Get some sleep, Mitch. Tomorrow’s a new day,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Ashley didn’t realize she was shaking until she got back in her car and put her hands on the steering wheel to drive home. She sat there a few minutes with her eyes closed, taking in slow, deep breaths.

  “Are you there, Balen?”

  Silence.

  “What am I saying?—of course you are. I can feel you, for crissake, I just can’t see you. You’re sitting here right next to me, aren’t you?”

  Silence.

  Just once, she wished he would answer her. “Thank you. For tonight. I don’t want to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t been there. You know, I keep hoping one of these times you’re going to answer me. At least that’s why I keep talking to you.”

  She reached over and put her hand on the passenger seat as her eyes welled with tears she was tired of trying to hold back. “I miss you,” she whispered softly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Had he not been drained from forty-eight hours of straight hunting, Haden would have been able to avoid the sleep dogging his heels. For hours, he lay there trying to fight it. The shower he’d taken only seemed to relax his aching muscles, adding a further measure of fatigue to his current state of exhaustion. Bottom line, he wasn’t recharged yet, and without the required rest, he wouldn’t be functioning for shit come daylight. But he knew what awaited him on the other side of slumber—nothing but pain, suffering, and heartache, and so he fought to resist the claws of Hypnos threatening to pull him under. He lost…

  After snapping the demon’s neck, no others were foolish enough to come after him. They were either too caught up feasting on their victims, or perhaps they didn’t want to end up like the piece of shit lying dead at his feet. Haden kicked the corpse out of his way and stalked into the brush, heading in the same direction he’d seen Anya flee.

  Fury rolled off him in waves of self-loathing, poisoning the blood pumping through his veins. He should have known this would happen. He should have acted sooner. And now he needed to find his woman and tell her everyone she loved, her home, her village, was nothing more than a pile of ash—and it was all his fault.

  He knew precisely where she was, and he didn’t require the aid of his ability to track her, either. His sharply acute senses led him right to her. He could hear the rapid panting of her breaths. The bitter almond scent of her terror left a tang in the air that the drifting smoke couldn’t quite obscure, which meant she hadn’t run far enough or fast enough. If he could detect her, so could the demons.

  The pounding patter of her footsteps suddenly became silent. She’d found someplace to hide, or so she thought. Haden’s determined steps ate up the distance between him and the narrow cave she’d ducked into. The rapid fire of her heartbeat kicked even faster when he neared the opening of the cave. “Anya, it’s me,” he announced, striding inside without hesitation. As his eyes adjusted to night vision, he saw his female huddled in a recess of the cave, staring at him as if he were a stranger—a monster, like one of those beasts that had just burned and leveled her village.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, her voice thick with unshed tears. “What are you?”

  When he didn’t respond, she hit him with another barrage of questions he didn’t want to answer. “I felt it the night I met you, when I touched you, but not since then. I thought I’d imagined it.”

  He knew she was referring to that time she’d touched him when he wasn’t corporeal. Since then, he hadn’t crossed back over, taking care to suppress the darkness inside him. With time, it had gotten easier. Anya seemed to bring out whatever little goodness he had in him.

  “Are you one of them? Oh God, tell me you’re not a demon!”

  “I’m not a demon.”

  “Tell me the truth!”

  “Dammit, Anya, we don’t have time for this! I’m not a goddamn demon!” He held out his h
and and took a step toward her. She shrunk back farther into the crook of the wall, not looking the slightest bit convinced. “Then what are you? I saw you fight that thing! You’re not human!”

  “You’re right, I’m not. But I’m asking you to trust me, Anya. You’re not safe here. They can find you, and soon they’re going to be looking. I’ll answer your questions, all of them, just not until I get you somewhere safe.”

  Keeping his hand extended, he took another step closer. This time she didn’t shrink back. She pressed her hand against her still flat stomach, already instinctively wanting to protect their young. Damn, if he didn’t love her all the more for it. Hesitantly, she nodded and reached for him with her free hand. As soon as she was within reach, he pulled her into his arms and relief washed over him when she hugged him back.

  His hand slid into her hair, cupping the back of her head as he held her tightly against his chest. “I love you, Anya. Never doubt that.”

  Again, she nodded. Her tears saturated his shirt, stinging his chest as the moisture bled through to his skin. His chest ached with profound loss and heartbreak—Anya’s heartache. Lord, he just wanted to be free—to live his life as a free man indentured to no one. But this could never be, he realized sadly, because he wasn’t free and he wasn’t a man. Before this attack, he’d considered petitioning the High Court for asylum, for himself and Anya—but not now, not anymore. He fumed as images of the terror on Anya’s face played through his mind. He’d deal with this alone, just as he’d always been—alone…

  “Get up!” The snarled command was followed by a kick to the side of Haden’s bed. The jerking movement and abrading voice ripped Anya from his arms as his eyes flew open. A low growl erupted from Haden’s throat, and without any more warning, he leapt from the bed, catching Rowen by the throat and shoving him back until he slammed against the wall. It was in that moment, that final act of negligent disregard that sealed Rowen’s fate. “Never do that again!” he hissed.

  An ember of fear flickered in the fallen angel’s eyes as he struggled to break Haden’s iron tight grip on his throat. At the last second, Haden released the stupid son of a bitch with a snarled curse and shoved him away. “Stay away from me today,” he growled, not giving Rowen a chance to respond. “Or I just may do Liam the favor and kill you myself!” He marched over to the bed and snatched his shirt up from the floor. “I’m taking the day off,” he announced, pulling it on over his head. “I’ll find you when I’m ready to look at you without wanting to tear your goddamn throat out!”