Apollyon smiled as though he liked the sound of that.
She held his blue gaze.
What she was going to propose was crazy and there was a danger it would shatter what little restraint she had around him, but she was going to do it.
“I have a plan.”
CHAPTER 4
Apollyon perfected his image, smoothing his long black hair back into his neat ponytail and tightening the knot of his blue tie. Warmth rolled off the sandstone buildings that lined the elegant shopping avenue and the trees growing at intervals close to the busy road to his right swayed softly in the breeze, mingling with the hum of the cars. The golden light from the store windows washed over his left side, and the lamps made his and Serenity’s shadows dance as they walked.
He studied every little thing, struggling to focus on his mission. So much about this world fascinated him, tugged at his natural curiosity and kept trying to distract him.
Serenity remained quiet beside him, distant and lost in her own thoughts. Was she worried about her plan?
It was simple, yet likely to be effective.
He glanced across at her, taking in how different she looked in the short black sleeveless dress that hugged her breasts and flared out from her waist, and the black high heels. She had tied her blonde hair up into a loose chignon, and dark kohl now lined her eyes and her lips were stained red, adding to her allure.
It had been difficult not to look at her before, but now it was impossible.
She drew his eyes to her every second he was in her presence and he didn’t want to look away.
He wanted to stare at her forever.
He reminded himself that it was alright now. He was supposed to look at her, to be attentive and charming, to be romantic with her.
“He’ll be here.” The tremble in her voice betrayed the nerves he could easily feel in her.
Was she having second thoughts? Her form of revenge was far more gentle and lenient than the one he would have chosen for the man she called Edward, a bastard who had not only betrayed her but had apparently stolen precious items from her too, heirlooms that belonged to her clan.
For such sins, he would happily cast the wretched mortal into the bottomless pit to suffer there and let the Devil and his legion of demonic angels have their way with him.
Her heartbeat quickened, dragging him away from pleasing thoughts of watching her unfaithful lover suffer.
He looked ahead, following her gaze, and spotted the illuminated sign of the club she had mentioned to him, one she had frequented with his target and one popular with witches.
It was sandwiched between two stores, the windows on either side of the glass doors blacked out. Elegant lamps mounted on the sandstone wall on either side of the door cast a warm glow over the bustling queue hemmed in behind a black velvet rope suspended between gold metal posts and small groups of mortals who had gathered to talk and smoke together on the pavement.
Apollyon’s gaze flickered over everyone, singling out those who had power. He had yet to get a description of his target, hadn’t had the heart to press her for one when she had clammed up and said she was having second thoughts. She had promised to point Edward out to him though.
“I shouldn’t be asking you to do this.” Serenity stopped and turned to face him, and he wanted to sigh as he realised they were going to do this again. “It’s really not right.”
“You are only asking me to pretend that I am your new lover. It will be an easy charade, and it will not contravene any law of the contract that lies between us.” He smiled at her, hoping it would alleviate her nerves and convince her to continue with their plan.
She nodded and he kept the truth to himself, felt wretched for concealing it from her but it was necessary. If she knew it, she would send him away, would refuse to go through with things.
Nothing could contravene the laws of their contract.
Because he hadn’t invited her to create any or made any of his own.
Whatever she desired of him, she would have.
Sin or no sin involved.
And he was fine with that.
Serenity moved closer to him and he bit back the groan that rolled up his throat as her light perfume teased his senses with its floral notes, luring him to her as much as her appearance. He had forgotten how good females smelled.
Damn, the scent of her fired him up, had him perilously close to forgetting his duty and his mission, forgetting everything but her.
Dangerous. She was dangerous and he knew it, but he didn’t care.
Something about this beautiful, enchanting female had him bewitched, utterly entranced by her.
She went to move away but he snagged her wrist, unwilling to let her move away. She stopped, glanced at his hand on her and then lifted her beautiful hazel eyes to meet his.
“You are nervous.” He grazed his fingertips over her skin, enjoying the silky warm feel of her.
Whenever he touched her, he didn’t want to let her go. No. He couldn’t bring himself to let her go. It was impossible. He wanted to run his hands over every inch of her and feel the subtle differences across her body, studying her and memorising every supple plane and curve.
“You would be too if you were about to walk into a club with an angel on your arm.” There was a hint of a joke about her tone but he knew that she was being serious.
His appearance to her disconcerted her.
“I do not look like an angel to mortals, and I believe you have a particular gift that allows you to see through my glamour, one the other witches are unlikely to share.” He took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face the dark window of the shop behind her.
Her eyes widened.
Whatever ability she had, she evidently couldn’t see through an illusion he cast on something else. He was projecting his image onto his reflection, so she would see what other mortals did when they looked at him.
“You look like that?”
He nodded, leaned forwards until his chest was close to her shoulders, almost grazing her back, and looked down at her face.
“Does my reflection satisfy you?” He studied her profile, found himself eager to know whether it did.
She looked at him over her shoulder, her face close to his. “I think I prefer to see you as you are.”
The honesty in those words touched his heart.
His gaze fell to her lips and he stepped back, away from the temptation they presented.
“You have taste though,” she said and he looked back at her. “In suits and in armour.”
Apollyon smiled. “If you are satisfied, then let us begin your revenge.”
He held his hand out to her, only meaning for her to take it as a hint to go to the club rather than for her to hold it but she slipped hers into it. Her hand was small in his, delicate, and he stared down at them as he walked with her to the club, a strange but powerful sense of possessiveness rolling through him, making him burn with a need to protect her.
Had he ever held someone’s hand before?
If he had, it was too long ago to recall and it couldn’t have felt this good. He wouldn’t have forgotten it if it had.
The man on the door, a mortal dressed in a sharp black suit with neatly styled dark hair, stepped aside the moment they neared and Serenity looked across at Apollyon.
He shrugged. Some mortals were easier to compel than others. The bouncer had been an easy target. A message sent straight into the man’s head saying that he wanted to let the beautiful woman pass had been enough to make him lift the black velvet rope for them.
Apollyon led her through the brightly-lit foyer where more people were milling around. She moved in front of him, leading him towards another set of doors. The heavy beat of music filled the air, distant and quiet, more of a feeling vibrating in his chest than a noise.
That all changed when she pushed one of the double doors open.
He flinched as the volume of the music hit him but kept following her, into the darker inte
rior of the club.
His eyes adjusted as he moved forwards and he looked around, taking note of everything about his surprisingly elegant surroundings. Gold neon lit a black bar ahead of him, white spotlights casting pale light over the bartenders and the patrons gathered there. Mirrors backed the shelves of colourful bottles behind the bar, an entire rainbow of alcohol that the people packed into the nightclub seemed bent on consuming as they hollered orders at the bartenders.
He studied the well-dressed people, singling out those with power. There were more than he had anticipated, and he had the feeling not all of them were witches.
Serenity tugged him deeper into the club as he scanned the mortals. The dance floor was small and busy with people performing what he could only interpret as clothed sex. Blue strobes and lasers made their movements stuttered and broken as they gyrated against each other.
At the edges of the room, clusters of tall round black tables with gold edging surrounded by black velvet stools filled the space. Most of them were occupied, with some groups having dragged over stools from other tables, or moved the tables themselves to form enough room for their entire party. They spoke loudly to each other, fighting to be heard over the volume of the music. If he could call it music.
The fast hard beat made him actually miss the relative peace of Hell.
Serenity suddenly stopped and he bumped into the back of her.
The feel of her warm body against his front stirred him as badly as the coffee had done and he backed off a step so she wouldn’t notice. She looked over her shoulder at him and motioned with her eyes towards the dance floor.
If she expected him to be able to pick out Edward from a crowd, she was overestimating his abilities.
She took hold of his arm and he felt her fingers against his skin rather than the jacket of his suit. She could reach through his glamour too. He burned where she touched, growing hungry for more, for her to touch other parts of him.
He was starting to see why some of his fellow warriors had pledged themselves to mortal women.
Had those under his command, the small band of warriors he had come to feel were his friends, bound by their history and a companionship that had lasted millennia, found females of their own?
He hadn’t heard from the group in a long time, blamed Hell for his absence in their lives and theirs in his. Many of them couldn’t enter the realm, were unable to get permission to venture there.
One of them had entered Hell never to return.
He had long thought Rook dead, extinguished from existence somehow even when he had hoped the guardian angel had been sent back to Heaven to be reborn and reassigned to a different group. The arrival of Marcus in their team had given rise to that hope, but all the years Apollyon had passed in Heaven, he had never seen Rook.
Now, he knew Rook had suffered a fate worse than death.
Apollyon still couldn’t shake how he had felt when a battalion of demonic angels had come to the plateau in response to several of their foul breed attempting to goad him into a fight and he had seen the one who commanded them.
Rook.
It had been centuries or more since he had seen the male last, but he had easily recognised him. He had trained the angel, had been close enough to him to consider him a friend, and was bound to him via a connection so strong that not even death could sever it. Rook had been part of his team, the angel from the guardian corps in his elite squad formed of one warrior from each faction.
Rook had been closest to Einar, the hunter, and had teased Lukas, the mediator, as badly as the rest of them.
While he had recognised Rook, the male hadn’t recognised him.
He’d had so many questions to ask him, but before he could voice any of them, the entire battalion had moved on, and he hadn’t seen Rook again since then.
How would Lukas and Einar react if they knew Rook was alive? If they knew he had fallen?
He twisted so he could see the door of the nightclub through the crowd, a pressing need to go and tell his brethren what he had discovered pounding in him. He was on Earth now. He could find his way back to them through the bond they shared and tell them what had happened to Rook. Maybe they could find a way to convince Rook to return to Heaven.
Although, that meant convincing him to die.
Only through death could Rook be reborn as an angel of Heaven again.
Serenity’s palm brushing his biceps pulled him back to her and he returned his focus to her, silently vowing to find the others and let them know that Rook had fallen.
She tiptoed, her breasts pressing against his arm and his chest, completely destroying his ability to focus on anything but the way they felt against him, and the intense need for more that flooded him.
She pulled on his arm, tugging him downwards, and he lowered his ear to her mouth when he finally clawed back enough sense to realise that she wanted to say something to him.
“The mousy-haired man, white shirt, exposing far too much chest,” she shouted into his ear and he grimaced.
He should have told her that he had sensitive hearing.
He looked for his target, gaze scanning the dancers, and zeroed in when he spotted him. Serenity was right, and the male was showing far too much chest. His white shirt had at least the top three buttons undone.
Apollyon’s gaze shifted to Edward’s companion, a slender dark-haired woman in a revealing tight pale dress.
“Is that the female he betrayed you with?” He frowned.
The woman was nothing compared with Serenity. His gaze dropped to her and she shook her head.
What sort of womaniser had Serenity been involved with? The thought of her with such a man made him desire to change plans and send him to Hell after all, and maybe the demonic angels and the Devil wouldn’t be the only ones making him suffer.
“Do you want a drink?” she shouted over the noise of the music.
Apollyon shook his head. “I do not think alcohol would be wise. I have not tasted it before and I am not sure whether it is still forbidden.”
Serenity looked past him to the bar. “Well, I need a drink.”
“Then a drink you will have.” He released her hand. “I will be just a moment.”
He heard her gasp when he disappeared. A woman looked right at him when he appeared in a space next to her, accidently knocking against her, and he smiled his apology. The anger that had been in her dark eyes disappeared in an instant.
“Can I buy you a drink, Handsome?” She fluttered her long lashes at him and smiled.
He had never been in the game but he knew when a woman was flirting. He looked over towards Serenity where she stood by the dance floor, staring through the crowd at him, shock still written across her face.
“I am here with someone.” He sensed the woman’s gaze leave him.
She snorted. “Really, you ought to trade up.”
Was she insinuating that Serenity wasn’t good enough for him and that perhaps she was?
He laughed. He had never heard something so ridiculous. Why would he want to leave Serenity for the woman before him? Serenity was kind, warm, he looked back at her and his smile slowly fell as it began to dawn on him, and beautiful.
She really was beautiful.
And he wanted her.
CHAPTER 5
That revelation hit Apollyon hard.
He had never wanted a mortal woman before, not like this. This was want. Need. It consumed and controlled him, flooded him with an urge to return to her, to touch her because he craved the feel of her beneath his fingers, ached constantly to be close to her.
He flagged down the bartender and compelled him to make the same brightly coloured drink as the flirtatious woman had in front of her. The man made it and slid the martini glass across the bar to him. Apollyon took it and left, disappearing and reappearing beside Serenity.
She gasped again and then smiled when he held the drink out to her.
“I am not sure what it is.”
“Did your ne
w friend recommend it?” She was still smiling but there was something different about her.
Something darker that came with a strong sense of power.
Jealous?
“She recommended something else and I refused.” He offered the drink again and Serenity took it this time, moved the small black straws around so the ice clinked against the sides of the glass and then sucked on them.
Apollyon stared at her mouth, mesmerised as she removed the straws and licked her lips.
“Good?” he said and she nodded.
The power that had radiated from her disappeared and she smiled. It had been a long time since he had dealt with a witch. Was she strong enough to curse him? He wasn’t sure if his own powers would stand against hers and he didn’t want to find out.
Just thinking about it had his thoughts returning to Rook. A witch had been his downfall.
Now that Apollyon was looking back, now that Serenity had awoken feelings and desires in him, perhaps the witch hadn’t been Rook’s downfall.
He was starting to feel it had been love.
Rook had fallen in love with the witch he had been assigned to protect. A witch who had been captured and dragged to Hell, and one Apollyon was beginning to believe was dead, because what else would have caused Rook to fall?
He looked at Serenity and felt the full force of his desire for her and the feelings that were growing behind that veil of need and hunger, of lust. A question rang in his mind, one that left him cold because he couldn’t answer it straight away.
If this witch was taken from him, if the Devil dragged her down to Hell and killed her before him, would he fall just as Rook had?
He wasn’t sure he would be strong enough to go on, to let the rage it would ignite in him burn out and continue with his life as an angel, unaffected by the loss. He wasn’t sure he would be able to hold back that rage and stop himself from waging war against all of Hell.
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