by Tessa Cole
Except Gideon didn’t think there’d be answers, let alone a solution. Even Jacob seemed doubtful.
God, I was going to die or go crazy, and I was going to take Gideon with me.
That thought burned the most. I couldn’t even contain the casualties to myself. I was going to ruin someone else’s life, just like I’d ruined Marcus’s. The only way to save Gideon would be to give myself to the archnephilim and let him use me, but that would mean the deaths of others, many more than just me and Gideon.
A part of me wanted to scream and cry at the injustice. It wasn’t fair. All I wanted was a normal human life. Why was that too much to ask for? I’d spent my childhood on the run, always afraid. I’d finally found balance and a purpose in my job. That balance had been slow in forming, but I had it, and I had no doubt the next stage, friends, maybe even a family, would also be— have been slow in coming, but it would have eventually come.
If I hadn’t screwed it up by getting involved in the supernatural world.
And I’d tried. So damn hard. I’d had that one scare with Marcus where I’d realized I couldn’t just pretend supers didn’t exist, but I’d also managed to have nothing to do with supers since.
Until now.
And there hadn’t been anything I could have done to avoid it. If I went back in time, I would have done the same thing, interrupted the robbery then convinced the robber to go into the alley.
It was as if all those years I’d spent avoiding my supernatural nature had finally come crashing down on me in one horrible day, and fate had decided that even though I wasn’t one of Michael’s monstrous creations, my existence couldn’t defy the natural order. Nephilim weren’t supposed to exist.
I wasn’t supposed to exist.
Perhaps this was why I’d been born. To help end this threat. Although why I also had to be mated to Gideon was beyond me.
And really, none of it mattered. Fate or not, it was what it was, and if I spent too much time thinking about how unfair and horrific the situation was, I’d curl into a ball and cry. That, and the part of me that knew being a cop was the only job for me wouldn’t allow me to just give up.
If I was going to face my end, I was going to face it head on, and I was going to make sure the archnephilim didn’t killed anyone else or any of the guys. That was the least I could do.
Which meant my main objective now was to join the guys in searching the archives to find a way to help kill the archnephilim and minimize casualties, since so far he’d kicked our asses.
And while I hoped the odds would be better now that lethal force was an option, the archnephilim was also now more powerful. Because of me.
“The archives is in the basement,” Jacob said, and he headed toward the glass doors leading into the main hall, Kol close behind.
“A word first, Officer Shaw,” Gideon said, making Jacob and Kol pause and my heart skip a beat. Did he know about the brand? Had it already solidified enough for him to tell I was his mate instead of Zella? If he did, that could stop him from planning to kill the archnephilim and that would mean more people would die. That would mean some or all of the guys on the team would die. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t be responsible for that.
“You can meet me in the archives if you’d like,” Jacob said, the command blessedly open-ended.
Marcus came around the back of the SUV and stepped possessively close to me again.
Gideon leveled a frozen glance at Marcus. “Alone, please.”
Marcus’s claws extended a little more from his fingers.
I brushed his arm, drawing his attention to me. “Get started without me. The more eyes, the greater the chance we find something.” That, and if Marcus stayed, my chances decreased of convincing Gideon to go against the nature of the mating brand and keep his original plan to sacrifice me. If it was just us, I might be able to convince him to hold firm. But with Marcus arguing against it, there was a chance Gideon would break and give in to him.
Marcus — or was that his wolf? — huffed with displeasure, but he turned and marched after Jacob and Kol.
We waited in the garage as Gideon watched the others leave, the temperature unnervingly steady as if the angel had managed to freeze over everything, expression, body language, and emotions, locking it all deep inside. That was good. That meant he’d hardened his heart to the inevitable.
Then a hint of mist unfurled in the air around me. Grief. Strong enough to manifest.
Shit. Where was the icy, hard angel when I needed him? I wouldn’t be able to do this on my own, not against Marcus’s ferocious protection.
“Can we talk at my mate’s bedside? I—” He ran his hands through his hair. “I thought I could leave her and go to the crime scene, but the thought of her waking up alone is driving me crazy.”
“Sure.” Disappointment I wasn’t supposed to have squeezed in my chest. He still thought Zella was his mate. That was supposed to be a good thing.
I shoved the emotion down deep, as far as it would go. It was an effect of the brand, nothing more. We didn’t know each other, and he despised my species. Our joining wasn’t wonderful, it was cruel.
He headed inside and I followed, giving my sleeve a tug even though the brand wasn’t close to being revealed, unable to help myself. The mist followed me, growing stronger the closer we got to Zella’s room.
“You said she’s strong,” I said, needing to say something, praying I could alleviate some of his grief before moisture collected on my cheeks. “She’ll pull through this.”
We reached the room’s window and Gideon stopped, pressed his hands to the glass, and stared inside. Her tattered wings had been cleaned but were still in braces, and her face was one big ugly bruise, although it looked like maybe some of the swelling had gone down. The blanket over her body, however, didn’t look right, and I realized it dropped off above her right knee and lay flat where the rest of her leg should have been.
“Amiah still doesn’t know if she can save her wings. I don’t know if she’ll survive losing them,” he said, his voice low, raw, and the mist thickened, clouding my vision. He pressed his palm to his brand and heat seeped up my arm. “And with the scars on her arms and in her soul, the brand isn’t visible and might not be noticeable for a long time. I won’t be able to use it to save her. Losing them will finish the job the nephilim started during the war. It’ll destroy her spirit completely.”
“It won’t, because she has you.” Even if they weren’t mated, his love for her was strong. And I really didn’t want to think about what was going to happen to him if killing the archnephilim killed me or drove me crazy. Perhaps if we did it before the bond fully formed, that would save him. Perhaps his love for Zella would save him. I was sure it could save her. If I had someone who loved me that much, I could pull through anything. Well, anything except this.
My mind jumped to Marcus’s breathtaking, confusing kiss in the hall this morning. He was going to be… I had no idea. Furious? Shattered? Broken?… when the inevitable happened.
I swallowed at the lump forming in my throat. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“As much as Jacob thinks there’s a way to save you, there isn’t.” Gideon pressed his forehead to the glass and the mist billowed around me. “I said I’d protect you, but I can’t.”
“I know you can’t. What I need is for you to do whatever it takes to stay on mission.”
Gideon glanced at me, clouds of grief and determination darkening his summer-sky eyes. “You don’t have to ask that of me.”
“Even when Marcus fights you over it.” I met his gaze head on. “And he’ll fight you over it.” He’d been fighting to keep me out of this since he’d first yelled at me in the hospital. I just hadn’t realized that was what he’d been doing until he’d kissed me.
“His file said you were partners about four and a half years ago. I didn’t realize you two were still in touch.”
I didn’t ask if his file also said I was the reason he was a werewolf.
“We aren’t— weren’t—” I didn’t know how to explain it. “It’s complicated.”
“It didn’t look that complicated when you met me in the garage this morning.”
And if I wasn’t Gideon’s fated mate and about to die or go insane, it wouldn’t have been.
“You two should talk about it.” His attention slid back to Zella. “Soon. You have less time than I’d hoped. The archnephilim’s brand isn’t even a day old and the magic connecting you has already made it stronger. The longer we wait, the stronger it will get.”
“And the harder it will be to kill him.” Yeah, I’d already figured that out, too. Another thing I was trying not to think about.
“Have you tried sensing where it is?” he asked. “It found you last night, so the brand is strong enough. Even though you’re human, your angel-touch is strong. I’ve only met a few other humans who could cast a light strike with as much power as you did last night.”
Yeah, because I wasn’t actually an angel-touched human.
“That’s probably why the archnephilim branded you,” Gideon said. “Which means there’s a good chance you’ll be able to use its brand to find it as well.”
“How do I find him?”
“Close your eyes and concentrate on the brand and your connection to the archnephilim.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath, hoping it would steady me and help me concentrate.
“Touching the brand might also help.”
Without rolling my sleeves, I pressed my palm against the archnephilim’s brand. It throbbed like a fresh burn. Not the searing pain when he’d been searching for me, but still painful.
“Flesh to flesh would be better.”
I opened my eyes and gave him my driest look. “I’m not taking my shirt off.”
“That’s fair,” Gideon said, his voice soft.
I closed my eyes again and concentrated on the pain in my biceps. The archnephilim had visited me in my dreams. He’d found me at my apartment. Whether I liked it or not, we were connected. I could sense his inky darkness, a noxious smoke under my skin, creeping thick tentacles out from the brand. My mind flinched away from it, but I forced it closer to the darkness, trying to find a way to connect to him, find him, but his essence wouldn’t let me in.
“Just take a breath and relax,” Gideon said, and heat from his brand curled up my other arm, drawing my essence like a moth to a flame. His brand was warmth and affection, determination and honor. I yearned to be wrapped in his confidence and take comfort in the heat of his spirit, but I knew if I let myself sink into our connection, it would solidify the bond and he’d know I was his mate. And that would make everything more complicated.
“Can you sense him?” he asked.
I pushed my concentration back to the darkness. It oozed between my mental fingers, making me shudder, twisted back around my mental hands, and tightened. Pain exploded from the brand, slicing into my mind and body, and a low, dark chuckle echoed in my head.
“Changed your mind already?” the archnephilim asked, his desire oozing through the pain. “I thought you had more fight than that.”
“Isn’t this what you want? Me?” I strained to sense anything about where he was.
“Except that isn’t what you’re doing.” The archnephilim’s desire spread across my chest, making my breath hitch. “But it should be. Your wolf can’t make you feel the way I can.”
Aching heat gathered low within me, my nerves thrumming with sudden consuming need. I yearned for his touch—
No. I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want his touch. This was him messing with my mind. Where was he? He seemed close, but I wasn’t sure if that was because he was in my head or actually somewhere close by.
“Not even your angel can make you feel like this.”
More desire flooded me, drawing a gasp. If my eyes hadn’t already been closed, I’m sure they would have rolled back, as the promise of a climax fluttered within me.
I jerked my hand from the brand and pressed my palms to the wall to keep standing. A foggy image fluttered across my vision. A concrete pillar with chunks chipped out of it. A band of weak hazy sunlight. A pool of murky water.
“Come to me.” The archnephilim chuckled again, the sound racing through me. “Come for me.”
The pain from the brand burned hotter, with a shocking mix of pain and pleasure. I struggled to fight it, to deny that his inky darkness and aching pain turned me on, and concentrate on where he was. The feelings weren’t me. It was his connection to me, his control over my body. But my body didn’t want to listen to my mind, and the image vanished, leaving me surrounded in a darkness that ratcheted up the sensations within me. My breath came fast, my need for release twisting tighter. Tears burned my eyes at the pain and pleasure and hopelessness.
“You’re not hopeless, you’re powerful. We’re powerful,” he said. “I can give you pleasure and power beyond your wildest dreams. You never have to fear again. They will fear you.”
“I don’t want them to fear me.” I just wanted to live my life.
But that wasn’t going to be.
“It can be if you join me.”
“I don’t want vengeance.”
“You should.” The pain burned brighter, slicing into the pleasure. “We’re not animals. Our kind didn’t deserve to be slaughtered before we were even born.”
“You were made. You’re not natural.”
“You’re not better than me,” he snarled. More pain flooded me, consuming the rest of the pleasure. “And you’re not as strong as me. You’re mine. You belong to me. You’ll give me your strength and power and do as I say until I’m done with you.”
My hand fisted and I punched out, the archnephilim controlling my body. I jerked my eyes open as Gideon blocked my attack, shock flashing through his eyes. My other hand fisted and punched.
Gideon blocked my other strike, grabbed my wrist, twisted, and jerked me around. He captured my hand behind my back, wrapped his arm across my chest and held me tight, my back against his chest. “Officer Shaw.”
My body wrenched against his grip as my mind struggled for control against the archnephilim.
He howled with laughter. “That’s it, little nephilim. Struggle.”
He made me heave against Gideon’s grip, forcing the angel to yank my hand higher up my back, drawing a whimper of pain. A new pleasure swept into me, one thick with malice and delight at my suffering.
“Get out.” I mentally shoved at the archnephilim’s essence in my body.
His laugher increased.
“I said get out.”
“Make me,” the archnephilim sneered.
I mentally twisted and clawed and shoved at his essence within me, but his sick pleasure kept growing. He was consuming me, his darkness oozing into my cells, clinging to my soul, and drowning me as if his smoke was pouring down my throat again, and there was nothing I could do.
Chapter 15
Panic squeezed my chest and I fought to breathe against the archnephilim’s control. I screamed at my body to stop writhing in Gideon’s grasp, to stop obeying the archnephilim’s commands, but it wouldn’t listen. My body no longer belonged to me, nor did the sensation of dark pleasure and ferocious vengeance. I was trapped, a prisoner within myself, and his darkness was consuming me.
“Get out.” Please get out get out get out.
The light strike spell flashed into my head, the words racing around and around, and tears burned my eyes.
The archnephilim’s laugher increased, his certainty that he possessed me making my stomach churn. This was not supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen, and I wasn’t going to die possessed by this monster.
“Get out!” The light strike released within me. Light flashed, turning the darkness inside my lids white, and the archnephilim screamed. The divine light seared through my being, consuming the darkness and driving him from my head.
My knees gave out and I sagged against Gideon.
“Offi
cer Shaw?” He released my wrist and wrapped both arms around my waist, taking my weight and helping me stand. His scent and warmth enveloped me and all I wanted to do was stay in his embrace forever. It was where I belonged. Every fiber of my being thrummed with that knowledge while my mind screamed at the danger of even just being near him.
I pushed out of his embrace — he let me go easily — and clung to the wall to keep standing. “When were you going to tell me he could use the brand to control me?”
“He can what?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“He can control me.” I shuddered at the memory of everything the archnephilim had made me feel, the need, the desire, and the terror.
“That’s not possible—” Realization rushed across his expression. “It must be because he’s also a wraith. The brand connects you, gives him access to your soul, which is what a wraith needs to possess someone. Do you know where he is?”
“No. If he hadn’t—” The memory of his pleasure and the need he’d made me feel shuddered through me. “If he hadn’t—” Another shudder and I gasped back a moan.
Gideon shifted to grab my shoulders, probably to steady me, but the thought of his hands on me made my pulse race faster.
God, what was wrong with me?
I jerked back and raised a hand, stopping him from holding me. “I’m all right. I started to get a sense of where he might be, then he took over.”
A hint of mist billowed around me with Gideon’s grief… or maybe this was regret, and I knew what he was going to say next.
“You want me to try again.” If we were going to hunt down the archnephilim, it was the only way, but the thought of doing that again made my pulse race and not in a good way.
“Yes, but I’ll need to arrange for some precautions first, so hopefully it won’t be able to possess you again.” The mist thickened. “Or you’ll be contained when it does.”
“Wonderful.”
“In the meantime, you should say what you have to say to Marcus.” He glanced through the window at Zella, his message clear: before it was too late. “Take the elevator to the basement. The archives is right there.”