Maybe she’d genuinely helped him and escaping from the mountain had nothing to do with an ulterior plan from Dagan’s warped imagination.
It still didn’t mean he could trust her. He threw up a psychic blockade around her. Until she told him why he’d been targeted, she wasn’t going anywhere.
It was nothing less than she deserved. The prospect filled him with bleak resignation.
She gave a delicate shudder and then frowned. “What… did you just do something?”
“I can’t have you disappearing on me.” He braced himself for her outrage. It wouldn’t change his resolve.
“I’m not going to disappear on you. I need your—” She bit off her words as comprehension, and unwarranted shock, swept across her face. “You’ve disabled me.”
Her accusation stung which made no fucking sense, since it was the truth, and what the hell else did she expect?
“Yes.”
“Am I your prisoner?”
“No. But if it makes you feel better, you can tell yourself that.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. He refused to allow her evident distress to touch him. She’d played him once. Never again. “That doesn’t even make any sense. I saved you. Dagan would have left you there to rot.”
Did she want him to thank her? “Tell me when you first met Dagan.”
“I’ve already told you. I’d never seen him before tonight.”
If he chose to believe her, that meant someone else had been at her club. Someone as powerful as Dagan. Another player. “Who did you see the night we met?”
The same guilt he’d witnessed before flashed over her face, and the knot in his chest tightened. She was hiding something. He needed to discover what it was. And he couldn’t afford to let the memories they’d made over the last few days distract him.
Consume him.
The memories were false. He needed to remember that.
“I can’t tell you.” She sounded reluctant to admit it. “I promised him a long time ago I’d never reveal his name to anyone.”
Acid tore through him, blazing through his chest. Ugly. Unprecedented. He didn’t know where it came from. Didn’t want to know. Stay focused on the goal.
“Your lover?” He bit out the words as though they defiled his tongue. To hell with his goal.
“Absolutely not.” Ice speared through each word and her blue eyes dared him to challenge her. He glared right back because what else could she mean? “You’ve got no idea what it’s like. How can you? You’ve always known your heritage. Always known you were immortal. You never had to watch people you cared about grow old and die, while you just kept on living.”
Shit. This was the last direction he’d expected the conversation to go. There was a wild gleam in her eyes and although she wouldn’t believe him, he did understand where she was coming from.
In a way.
But she was right. He’d always known of his immortality. It had given him a shield, foreknowledge that if he became close to any mortal, he’d suffer the consequences.
It had served him well.
“Isabella.” He wasn’t sure what to say, only that he had to say something. But she didn’t give him the chance.
“I was fourteen when my mother threw me onto the streets. But I didn’t stay in the gutter for long. I could do tricks, you see. Tricks that didn’t involve me having to service men the way so many of the girls did. Because my tricks were magic and they earned me coins so I didn’t starve.”
He unfolded his arms, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and his wings undulated. “Isabella,” he said again, but the words died in his throat when she looked at him. No filters. Pain glowed in her eyes, and the agony of centuries slammed into his chest, paralyzing the oxygen in his lungs.
How long had she survived, not knowing who she truly was?
“My mother’s protector always believed I was his daughter and ensured I had a good education. Once I crawled out of the slums, I made good use of it.”
“You don’t have to relive all this.” He could imagine her life. Hell, he already had. Except he’d been wrong. She hadn’t been a vulnerable mortal.
That didn’t make what had happened to her any better.
“Yes, I do.” A thread of scorn tainted her words. “It’s the only way to make you see. I didn’t understand, Nate. I got to a certain point and I didn’t age. And I didn’t die. I couldn’t even kill myself because I kept on healing. That was in eighteen-twenty-five.”
Shaken, he gazed at her in silence. It had never occurred to him how abandoned demon spawn—demon bloods—had coped with their immortality if they’d been isolated from others of their race.
In Ama-gi, whenever a precious Nephilim had been born, they’d been beloved, protected. Educated in their heritage, and their immortality—when compared to humans—had always been understood and accepted.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Her voice was bitter. “I’m aware if I’d cut out my heart or put a bullet through my brain I’d die. Just never quite screwed up the courage to do that.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking.” He clenched his fists, fighting the need to pull her into his arms, because how the fuck would that help? “I’ve never encountered those with demon blood who were unaware of their lineage. It’s rare, Isabella.”
“Not on Earth, it isn’t.”
She was probably right. Now he considered it, the ones he hunted on Earth could all trace their roots back to the Fornax Galaxy, where demons had fled after their goddess had exiled them from this planet.
And while he’d always known descendants of demons were spread across the face of the Earth, unless they caused trouble, he ignored them. But the Earth-born ones never caused that kind of trouble, and now he understood why.
Because they were unaware of who they really were.
The Watchers knew, though. Where did they fit in? Yet he couldn’t ask her. Not now, when he’d inadvertently forced her to return to the nightmare of her past.
“I’m sorry.” He choked on the words. They didn’t come easily, not when he’d rarely uttered them before. What was he even apologizing for? He wasn’t responsible for what she’d been through.
But there was nothing else he could say.
The savage gleam in her eyes faded and she released a long breath as she sank back against the pillows. She pushed a shaky hand through her hair before giving him a wary look.
“I know.”
He hadn’t expected her to accept his words at face value and the fact she did caused a strange pain to twist through his chest. He sat at the end of the bed, his forearms on his thighs, and leaned forward, his gaze fixed on the floorboards.
“I gave up trying to make friends.” She said it so matter-of-factly, and the pain twisted deeper. From the moment of his creation, he’d been surrounded by other archangels. He hadn’t been alone, or lonely, and many of them he had counted as close friends.
Some of them he still did.
“I was…” Her voice trailed off and from the corner of his eye he saw her grip her fingers together. “I was in a bad place when my mentor found me. Turned out he’d been watching me for years. Gauging my powers. Anyway, he finally decided I was worth saving.”
Who was she talking about? A demon, for sure. And not Dagan.
“I owe him my sanity. But I’m not blinded by gratitude to the truth. He needed me, and I’ve always been a willing partner.”
Slowly, he turned to look at her, and caught her steady gaze. Questions seared his mind, and he clenched his teeth. He would not allow them to escape. He had to accept that he might never know who her savior was. But the not knowing was eating him alive.
Uncertainty flickered over her face as though his silence was unexpected. “My mother and relatives used to call me the devil’s daughter. That I was filled with nothing but sin. But he—my mentor—told me I possessed the blood of demons, a noble race, and I should be proud of my heritage. It was…” again she hesitated as
though she struggled to find the right words. “It was a revelation, Nate.”
A noble race. He’d never found them so. But he’d tear out his tongue before saying that to her.
“You’re not saying anything.” She sounded unnerved.
“I’m listening.” And deep inside, in a place he barely knew existed and sure as hell didn’t want to examine, a piece of him was dying.
“He told me there were others like me. Said there was an organization especially for the forgotten ones if I was interested in joining. Of course I said I was.”
The forgotten ones? He’d not heard that term used before when referring to the offspring of demons. But it was apt. Demons had always bred with impunity with the mortals on countless worlds, and rarely cared about the resulting child.
Unless that child was exceptional.
Another question burned. And this time he couldn’t remain silent. “Is this mentor your father?”
He hadn’t expected her to smile, even if it was a sad one.
“Apparently not. I believe him, though. If I were his daughter, there’s no reason why he’d deny it.”
Maybe not. It was strange, though. Demons had little enough time for their own spawn—children. Why had this demon taken Isabella under his wing if, as she asserted, it hadn’t been for sex?
He needed me. But why? And then an answer came to him.
“He needed you to join the Watchers.”
“Yes.” She didn’t appear surprised that he’d guessed. “Sometimes I liked to pretend his motives were purely altruistic, so I could meet others of my race. But you’re right. His overriding motivation for helping me was so I could find out what the Watchers are doing.”
“A spy.” How did that make sense? “Why didn’t he just join himself? They’d love a full blood demon in their ranks.” Unsure, he frowned. “Wouldn’t they?”
“You’d think.” She sighed and looked so weary it physically, fucking, hurt. “Yes, probably. That’s not the point. He didn’t want to reveal himself. He wanted to know what they were doing, as an organization. I wasn’t doing anything underhand. Just sharing with him what went on.”
He bet the Watchers wouldn’t feel that way if they ever discovered what she’d been doing. But even so. She’d only been reporting to a demon.
Something just didn’t add up.
“But,” she hesitated and the vulnerability in her voice twisted his pain into something unbearable. “I don’t think I would’ve survived without them. Finally, after one hundred and fifty years, I could make friends without that fear that had been eating me alive for so long. I found my family.”
Silence weaved between them, and guilt ate through him. Merely a decade or so before Isabella had discovered her people, he’d tried to enter the Watchers’ headquarters. While he hadn’t gone with the sole intention of destroying every demon blood inside, it had certainly crossed his mind. If he’d believed them dangerous, he would have found a way to wipe them out without a second thought.
He would have been responsible for the annihilation of her family. That she hadn’t yet found them was irrelevant.
“I know this wasn’t the first time you’ve breached the Watchers security.” Her voice was soft but there was a thread of condemnation there, too. He guessed he deserved it.
“Only once before,” he said, as if that would absolve him. It wasn’t a great feeling, knowing she’d learned things about him from the perspective of his enemies. “One hundred years ago, when I tried to find out what they were doing. But I never got inside the mountain.”
Uncertainty flickered across her face. “You didn’t slaughter a dozen demon bloods who tried to stop you from destroying the temple?”
Had she truly believed that, all the time they’d been together? A dull ache settled deep in his chest. Because the lies the Watchers had told her could so easily have been the truth.
“No.” It was all he could say. He had no other defense.
She was silent. He had no idea if she accepted his word or not. It shouldn’t matter to him. Nothing between them had been real.
He’d destroyed other demon bloods in battle, across the universe. She could condemn him for that. But he didn’t want her despising him for something he hadn’t done.
I don’t want her despising me for anything.
He sucked in a harsh breath. He couldn’t change the past. It was the future he had to focus on, and something else she’d said gnawed at the edges of his mind. Her mentor had told her who Nate was, but it didn’t answer a deeper question. Had the demon been following him? Was he working in tandem with Dagan?
His gaze roved over Isabella’s face. Dark smudges pooled beneath her eyes and her lashes flickered in exhaustion. She needed to rest. But he needed this one last answer.
“How did he know you were seeing me?”
“Oh.” She gave a tired smile. “It must be some demon/archangel witchy sense you share. He knew an archangel had been in my office the second he arrived. And then I spoke to you on the phone—and called you Nate.”
The demon hadn’t stalked him, then. And if he hadn’t called Isabella that night, just so he could hear her voice again, her mentor would never have known which archangel she’d been with.
Yet another damn coincidence.
The unearthly power that infused the walls of Isabella’s club had nothing to do with demons collating their forces. Nothing to do with Dagan. All he’d sensed was her mentor’s demonic presence.
And hers.
Brooding, he couldn’t tear his eyes from her as she gave up the struggle and slid into sleep. The knowledge she’d kept her true identity from him after discovering his own, thudded through his head, a constant reminder of how she’d betrayed his trust.
He wasn’t used to not being in control of the situation. Even among other immortal races archangels had the advantage. Because thanks to their megalomaniac goddess and her experimentation with DNA, there was only one degree of separation between archangels—and demons—and the original Alpha Immortals of antiquity.
The numerous minor gods and goddesses had been worshipped across the universe on untold worlds by countless mortals. They were powerful, arrogant, and sometimes entertaining. In the past, he’d taken many as lovers and enjoyed the distraction. He’d never come close to losing his ability to compartmentalize. There was business. There was pleasure. And there were friends.
But somehow Isabella had slipped through his defenses and he didn’t have a fucking clue how to categorize her. She should be his enemy. Yet he couldn’t think of her as such.
He stood and draped a blanket over her. Paralyzing her abilities had been the right thing to do. He couldn’t afford for her to escape and cause more chaos.
Is that the reason why I’m keeping her captive, though?
What chaos had she caused? He couldn’t prove anything against her, except for her heritage. The brutal truth was he hadn’t bound her to his side to save the planet.
He’d done it because he didn’t want to lose her.
Jaw clenched, he went into the sitting area and took a chair back to the bedroom. Derision burned through hm. Did he intend to watch her the entire night, now?
He sat down, folded his arms, and couldn’t shift his gaze from her. He couldn’t trust her. But he couldn’t keep her prisoner. Grim resignation settled like a rock in his chest and he released the binding that tethered her abilities.
In the morning, she’d be gone.
Chapter 20
Bella
Sunlight pierced the gloom and Bella stretched her aching muscles before slowly opening her eyes. Nate was sprawled on a chair beside the bed, head back, sound asleep. His wings cushioned his back and trailed to the floor, in magnificent, breathtaking glory.
She exhaled a silent sigh. How many times over the last few days had she wondered how he’d look, without his protective glamour? Even her wildest fantasies had fallen short of the reality.
But she couldn’t afford to waste t
ime, drinking in his unearthly beauty. Dagan’s careless threat thudded in her mind and she pushed herself to her feet. It wasn’t just her life that might be in danger.
She had to warn Octavia.
Where was her phone? If Nate hadn’t immobilized her, she’d teleport to Romania right now.
Awareness slithered along her spine and she sent out her senses, testing the boundaries of her power. The tingling sensation that had sunk into her bones last night, when he’d disabled her, had gone.
She teleported to the bedroom door. He’d released her. While she slept. Why?
He stirred, his feathers rippling and muscles flexing, and she couldn’t drag her mesmerized gaze away. Within seconds he’d be fully awake, and her chance of freedom would vanish.
Would it?
He hadn’t loosened the bonds in error. He was giving her the choice. To stay or flee.
She held her breath as he shifted in the chair. Although she couldn’t see his face, he was staring at the bed. Motionless. As though waiting for… something.
Her breath thickened and chest grew tight. The distant hum of traffic from the outside world faded, and the silence within the room was almost tangible. Despite how she’d tried to avoid the truth, she’d fallen for him. Hard. Maybe from the first moment she’d seen him among the sea of mortals in her club.
The only one she didn’t have to fear outliving.
She could go home right now. He wouldn’t stop her. And what then? How did she think she could protect her friend against the wrath of a demon?
Far better to have an archangel by her side.
She took a step closer to him and he swung around as though she’d cracked a whip. Shock etched his face, instantly smothered, but it was enough.
He thought she’d left him.
It meant something. But he’d never admit it. So what did it matter?
More than it should.
“Good morning,” she said, sounding like a complete idiot. Not that he seemed to notice. It was insane that she didn’t know what else to say to him. What a shame she hadn’t suffered from that last night when she’d spilled her guts.
Salvation: A Realm of Flame and Shadow Novel Page 18