Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Sorcha stood in her new office with her hands on her hips. It was so…
Plain. Icky?
Hard to tolerate?
Definitely.
Four boring beige walls. A white erase board with the word “asshole” written in permanent red ink.
An awful green metal desk the likes of which she had never seen outside of old movies.
A cheap rolling chair and two tan, metal filing cabinets that held enough rust on them that she was sure she’d get tetanus just from opening a drawer.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Someone knocked on her door.
Depressed over the nightmare that would be this office, she went to open her door only to find a sexy Luke on the other side, holding some kind of green potted plant and a cup of coffee. He flashed that gorgeous grin at her. “Morning, new partner.”
“Thought you weren’t a morning person.”
“Oh, I am not. Don’t let this act fool you. I’m pretending to be human for your sensibilities ’cause I don’t want to scare you off on your second day.” He looked past her to the whiteboard. “Oh, I forgot about that.”
Luke walked into her office so that he could put the plant and coffee on her desk. He snapped his fingers and the word “asshole” vanished.
“Should I ask?”
Again, that adorable grin. “About the word or the snapping?”
“Both.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Rob was a douche. Couldn’t stand the bastard.
Asshole was a step up from what I normally called him—and is a body part that wouldn’t offend Reyes’s more delicate sensibilities and force her to get an HR department.
I had no idea that when the word scribbled itself across the board one night while he was working late that it would mentally break him.
Had I known that, I’d have done it a lot sooner.
” He laughed. “You should have seen him running through the yard, screaming he was being stalked and haunted.”
“By you?”
“Who knows? Like I said, he was a paranoid douche who made me sick to my stomach. I can’t stand a…” He grinned as he caught whatever profane insult he’d almost said.
She watched as the words “good morning, beautiful” drew themselves on the board. “That’s better.”
Yes, it was.
The plant floated over to the filing cabinets, then set itself down.
Luke screwed up his face. “It is shit in here, isn’t it?”
“I’ve worked in worse.”
“Really?” Running his thumb along his bottom lip, he shook his head. “Want to peek into my office? Get some decorating ideas?”
“Sure.” She’d see it sooner or later. Might as well stick her head into the devil’s den and get it over with.
He led her to the office next door to hers. The first thing she noticed was that he didn’t need a key. He simply waved his hand over the doorknob, and it opened. How she wished she had those evil mind powers, especially given how many times she locked herself out of her house.
One time, she’d even managed to do it while holding her keys in her hand. She still hadn’t figured out why the lock had broken, but it’d taken her hours to get back inside.
Locks hated her.
As Luke walked in and turned the light on, she laughed.
“Isn’t this just a little on the nose?” His office was a haunting thing to behold, and she just couldn’t believe it looked like this. “And seriously, how did you get all this stuff in here?”
The room was like Dr. Who’s TARDIS. Much bigger on the inside than outside.
He had matte, jet black bookcases that held images of adorable young angels carved along the top and bottom.
The shelves were covered with all kinds of occult and new age titles, along with history books.
Some in languages she couldn’t even identify.
On the wall behind his desk, there appeared to be an arched gothic church window that looked out onto a beautiful forest, complete with deer. Actual black velvet curtains hung down the wall as if the painted arched windows were real.
Flanking the mural were two…
Lamp posts? Only they were statues of knights set on black marble columns with something that appeared to be a flickering torch held in the raised hand of each one.
There was even a jet-black crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Like the shelving, his huge black desk had angels carved into it, along with two black skull candelabra set on the edges.
She assumed his PC must be inside the desk as the top held only a monitor and black, skull-skinned keyboard and mouse.
The matching leather chair on wheels looked more like a throne than the average office seat.
Even his evidence board was black and covered with interesting black sticky notes with silver writing about the student they’d found last night. But what intrigued her most was the fact that it was a Smart Board.
Latest tech.
Wow…
This was a far cry from her awful, outdated space.
Luke put his hands in his coat pockets. “Sometimes, I like being on brand. It sets a tone.”
“And Captain Reyes was good with the purchase order for all this?”
He laughed, then stopped abruptly. “Oh, hell no. She’d have had an apoplexy if I’d tried to requisition all this on the feeble IA budget.”
“Then how…never mind.” He was the son of the devil. It was obvious that he wasn’t used to going without.
Or being denied anything.
Even without his infernal father, a man that good looking seldom heard the word no.
From anyone.
“Want me to fix your office?” Luke offered.
Why did that make her so nervous?
Probably because making a deal with the devil’s son was never a good idea.
“Fix it how?” she asked, cringing inwardly at the thought of working inside something reminiscent of Wednesday Addams’ bedroom. While his office was interesting, it would give her nightmares to work in something this gothic.
“To your tastes, not mine. I don’t want to give you nightmares. I’m aware of the fact that I’m an acquired taste.”
Had he heard her thoughts? If he had, he gave no clue about it.
And to be honest, she was a lot more tempted than she should be. “How much will it cost?”
He sucked his breath in sharply. “It’s a dear price, I’m afraid.”
She could imagine. “My soul?”
“God, no.” He closed the distance between them until she had to look up into those mesmerizing eyes. The air between them was rife with an energy she couldn’t explain or identify. Whatever it was, it made her breathless. Her heart raced.
“I don’t do that anymore,” he said in a low tone that caused her to hold her breath. “It involves the hardest thing on the planet. Much more valuable than most souls…”
Why was she enjoying this game? It should piss her off and yet she couldn’t resist his unholy charm. She actually wanted to step closer to him. “And that is?”
He leaned down as if he were about to impart a major secret. When he whispered in her ear, it sent a shiver over her entire body. “A please and a thank you.”
She scowled. Luke was such a strange beast. “Those aren’t hard.”
He gestured over his shoulder toward the street. “You been out there lately? Politeness waved bye-bye to humanity a while back. I’m sad to say. It was one of the things I used to like about coming here.”
Clearing her throat, she stepped back before she gave in to the need to kiss those sexy lips.
“Yeah. I feel that. And yes, if you could please help me redecorate, I would be eternally grateful.” As soon as those words were out of her head, she remembered the “asshole” on her whiteboard.
“Out of curiosity, you’re not the one who made it look like it currently does, were you? ”
He flashed a devilish grin. “Aren’t you glad I like you?”
Definitely, but she would never say that out loud. No need to feed his abundant ego.
“I think so.” She wandered over to his smart board. “By the way, I love this. I’ve always wanted one.”
“Okay. Done.”
Was he serious? “Really?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Why not? They are handy for what we do. Makes it a lot easier to share info. I highly recommend them.”
Was he that rich or could he just make things like this appear with his powers? Both were terrifying to think about, but one was a lot scarier than the other.
Just what all could he do with nothing more than a thought?
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Are you ever going to tell me what your powers are?”
“Rather not say, but I’m glad they work in the human world. Bad enough to be kicked out of home. I’d hate to have been stripped of my powers, too.”
“Wonder why your father left them intact?”
Luke shrugged. “I’m not about to defend my father and say he’s a nice guy who was misunderstood. He’s really not. But he’s not always a bad dad. For all his faults, he was once an angel and sometimes…rare times…those instincts return when he lets his guard down.”
In a weird way, that made sense. “I never really understood his rebellion. My preacher grandad always said Satan became angry because people had freewill and angels didn’t. Is that true?”
“If angels didn’t have freewill, how could they disobey and rebel?”
Another thing she’d never thought about. He was right. The angels would have needed some degree of freewill to do that. “Then what happened?”
“Simply put…jealousy. Root of all evil.”
“I thought that was money.”
Luke shook his head. “Money only comes into play because people are jealous someone has more of it than they do. I can’t say this enough. Jealousy is the real root of everything bad. All throughout history. It was even the cause of the first murder.”
Cain and Abel. He had a valid point.
But one thing didn’t make sense to her. “Why would an angel be jealous of humanity?”