Chapter Twenty
CADE
The automatic doors at the entrance to the hospital opened too slowly, and I shouldered my way in, drawing the attention of the nurses at the front desk.
“Kline, Nikki Kline. Where is she?”
“Are you next of kin?”
My fingers flexed at my sides as I resisted the urge to slam my palm on the desk in front of the nurse. It was only the thought of being denied the opportunity to see Nikki that was keeping me under control because I could feel my demon inside me screaming for release.
For once, it wasn’t because of a desire for a fight or a fuck.
It was the protective, possessive part of me that wanted to be with my mate.
Even if she never wanted to see me again.
“I’m her… boyfriend.”
The nurse studied me from under her brow, her eyes filled with sympathy as she took in my dark hair, plastered to my forehead with sweat. Nervously, I ran my hand through it, pushing it back, and held her eye contact.
“Please,” I pleaded, repeating the motion. “I’m scared. I need to know she’s okay.”
“Of course, sweetie. Room 402. Elevator is back there.”
“Do you know if…” The words were impossible to get out. The idea too much to consider, let alone speak aloud, as if I believed that by some cosmic power, saying it out loud would make it real.
Please, Nikki, no.
“I don’t know the details of her condition, sir, but the doctor on duty—”
“Thanks.”
The elevator would be too slow, and I bounded for the stairs, taking them three at a time and putting on a burst of supernatural speed whenever the halls were clear of witnesses.
Stopping outside Nikki’s door only to make a vague attempt at composing myself, I paced back and forth, shaking the tension from my hands.
The move was useless.
Pushing the door open and wincing at the squeak, a growl rumbled through my throat.
There was a man standing next to her bed.
No, not a man.
An angel.
A literal angel.
While he wasn’t the first I had come across on Earth, I’d never had a proper conversation with one or anything more than a nod of recognition from me and a frown of suspicion from them.
“Who are you?” I demanded. Why would an angel be here?
He turned, all chiseled features and eyes bluer than blue. I ignored the look of sympathy on his face, his brows pulled together, and when he didn’t answer me fast enough, a chill ran through my body, ice pulsing through my veins and freezing me to the spot.
No.
“Are you here to take her away?” My voice was gravelly with emotion I hated to admit to, and my fingers twitched with the urge to attack him, the knowledge that would be a foolish move was irrelevant when faced with the idea he was here to take Nikki away from me.
Nikki.
“I’m not here to take her away,” the angel said, his voice as fucking soothing as his eyes.
Shoving him to the side, I laid my eyes upon my human, my mate, my Nikki.
There were no words, only a raw, guttural moan escaped my lips as I forced myself to cross the room to her.
She looked so small against the hospital bed, her hair cascading around the pillow and her shoulders.
She was surrounded and hooked up to tubes, IV lines, and several machines which beeped, hissed, and breathed for her.
My hands hovered above her body. I wanted to hold her hand and caress her hair, but she looked so fragile I thought I might break her if I were to touch her.
My angel.
The longer I watched, hovering helplessly over her body, the weaker I felt. My legs trembled under my own weight, and I gripped the bar on the side of her bed, the metal creaking and clanking under my weight.
It was her, she was making me weak. She made me weak.
I thought only human blood controlled us—if a demon loves someone, because despite our reputation, we love deeply and completely, our loves become our weakness.
You can create a trap using a demon’s lover’s blood, a circle on the ground can stop us from transforming.
Here I stood next to Nikki, who had completely consumed me, who I could no longer deny my feelings for, and her being hurt was physically weakening me.
I shuddered under the weight of the knowledge that I loved her.
I loved her, and I had driven her to this.
She was my weakness, my love, and if she died, I didn’t want to live.
“Oh, Nikki, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. When I pivoted and grabbed at the T-shirt of the angel by her bedside, he didn’t flinch, but his blue eyes clouded over with the natural white of angels before he controlled his anger. “What happened to her?”
“Zaqiel,” he muttered, bringing his hands to mine and removing my grip from his shirt.
“What happened to her, Zaqiel?”
“A car accide—”
“No fucking shit! I mean… is she going to be okay?” The anger exploded from me, and Zaqiel carefully arched a brow.
“If you’ll calm for a moment, I will explain.”
There was no calming, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off Nikki, strapped to the bed so she didn’t pull out her tubes and lines if she spasmed in her state. She was a prisoner of her body and this room, and I hated it.
I hated it more because it was all my fault, and I knew she’d hate it too.
Zaqiel watched me pace before sighing and leaning his shoulder against the wall.
He didn’t wait for me to still, observant enough to realize I wasn’t going to.
There was too much energy in me, and the need to protect was exercising itself with the need to bring down someone, anyone.
Zaqiel was closest, but he was in no danger from me physically. An angel could take a demon any day.
“She was drunk and driving.”
“She was going to the cemetery,” I added. Of course, she was. With the location of the accident, there was no other explanation. Nikki was going to her father’s grave as though he could offer her some peace or answers. But there’d be no peace, not after what I had put her through.
“They’re still figuring out what happened, but judging by her blood alcohol level, it’s likely she passed out behind the wheel. Several other cars were involved, but she was the only one hurt. Thank God.”
I wheeled around, invading his space. Zaqiel was unconcerned with my show of aggression, his power vastly superior to mine. But I was fighting with pure rage and hatred and didn’t doubt I could knock him down a few pegs before he ultimately bested me. “What the fuck do you mean, thank God?”
“No one else was hurt. Did you see the accident? No,” he added firmly before I could answer, “Well, I did. We’re lucky no one died.”
“Look at her!”
“If it weren’t for me, she would be dead, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped treating me like the enemy, demon.”
Through gritted teeth, I muttered, “Cade,” as I stepped away from Zaqiel.
He waited for me to interrupt again, and when I didn’t, he continued, “She was choking on her own vomit. I cleared her airway and removed her from the vehicle while keeping her neck and spine straight. I told the other drivers to stay away, so I could destroy the car as I needed to get her legs out so she wasn’t trapped, and we didn’t have to wait for the paramedics.
I stayed with her until the ambulance came. ”
I wanted to thank him, but I couldn’t find the words. “Is she going to die?”
The pause before he answered only increased the black hole that had been living inside my chest. God, I was a horrible being.
If I weren’t already from Hell, I would be going straight there.
I’d end my own life right now if it meant I’d spent an eternity being tortured for what I had done.
I deserved nothing less. But there was no afterlife for exiled demons.
Zaqiel cleared his throat. This was the first show of emotion I had seen from the otherwise stoic angel, and I wasn’t sure if that helped or made me feel worse. “She has a cerebral contusion and a small hemorrhage.”
“Z-Zaqiel,” my voice was as broken as my heart. “Tell me what that means.”
“It means, Cade, that her brain is swelling and pushing against her skull. This damages the part of the brain, the reticular activating system, that controls arousal from sleep.” He looked at Nikki, watching the machines beep and utter their soothing sounds of breathing life for a moment.
“She’s in a coma, and all we can do is wait until she wakes. ”
Getting out the words was hard, pushing them through my chest and out my throat, cutting daggers into me as they came. All I could think about was Nikki trapped in eternal sleep. Was she dreaming? What if she was having nightmares? “And if…” I closed my eyes, no, no if, “… when she wakes?”
“She’ll need physical therapy to walk and talk properly again.
She may suffer minor memory lapses for a few months.
But…” he dragged his fingers through her hair, and I wanted to rip his arm off, only allowing the move because he saved her life.
“When she wakes, she’ll be okay. She’s strong, I can tell. ”
“You have no idea,” I choked out.
Collapsing in the only available chair in the room, I pulled it up next to her bed, shuffled my feet across the floor, and rested my head in my hands. I groaned loudly before looking up and taking Nikki’s hand, carefully avoiding the IV line and stroking her wrist.
“You love her, don’t you?” Zaqiel asked.
“Yes.” There was no point in lying.
“Does she know what you are?”
“Yes.” I was quieter this time.
Zaqiel didn’t ask how she had reacted. I suspect he didn’t need to.
Her reaction was staring him in the face, lying in a hospital bed after an accident that almost took her life were it not for the intervention of an angel.
He grabbed his jacket from the end of Nikki’s bed and shrugged it on.
“I’ll come back and check on her in a few days. ”
“I’ll be here.”
The sympathetic pull of his brow definitely made it worse.
“I know. I’ll tell the doctors you’re staying.
” I doubted visitors were allowed to hang around every hour of the day, but there was no way in hell I was leaving anyway, and Zaqiel must have known that.
Perhaps he had a rapport with the doctors here.
I didn’t particularly care. If I was questioned, I’d fight to stay.
Let them try and stop me.
Zaqiel was just about at the door when I found the words. “How can I ever repay you for saving my heart?”
He paused, his back to me. “You don’t need to. I’m an angel. I go where I’m needed.”
“And I’m a demon…” he turned then, his eyes blazing white meeting my yellow, “… and we don’t take these things lightly. You saved my love, my life, and I owe you mine.”
Zaqiel almost smiled, a slight lifting of his lip before it disappeared. “You’re all God’s children, and I am his vessel.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say.
Demons as God’s children seemed obscene, but it made sense, and while most of us would deny it until our last breath left us, I guess it had to be true.
The legends of the Devil being a fallen angel, cast down to the underworld and running a world of demons and darkness, while never proven, was still the most accepted tale.
I stayed silent as I watched him leave, wondering if he knew the answers.
But watching Nikki, I didn’t care. I left that world behind before I met her, and then when I had her, I was certain I’d never need to return.
Nikki’s eyes were moving behind her closed lids, and I reached out and stroked her forehead, telling her I was there, that I loved her, and that I was sorry.
The movement eased, and I hoped she could hear and forgive me.
I hoped she was having nice dreams if she were dreaming at all, that she was in no pain, and her heart didn’t ache like mine.
I’d bear the pain for her a thousand times over and would have my kin dig into my chest and remove my mark, a torment I’d live through again and again if I could take away the pain I had caused Nikki.
And Zaqiel, I’d give him my life if I had to for saving mine.