Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“ Why won’t you look at me?”
Nicole’s soft voice had Keenan’s head turning toward her. She stood with her body pressed against the stark white wall in Sam’s “safe” house.
No place was safe enough. Keenan knew the coyotes would come after them. Once a shifter got your scent, it was pretty impossible to shake him. Going back to the antebellum house he’d bought— for her, everything had been for her— wasn’t an option. He might as well just paint a bull’s-eye on his back if he did that. Plus, there would be folks who’d come looking to take vengeance on Big Mike’s killer.
Those folks would have to get in line.
“Thank you,” Nicole whispered.
He blinked, but was careful to keep his face expressionless. Sam, ever the sly one, had brought them to this place—an apartment in the Quarter. One with reinforced shutters and a perfect view of the outside. Once, the Quarter houses had been designed to keep out enemies. Shut the doors, bar them, and no one could get in from the street. The buildings were all lined next to each other, the better to keep intruding soldiers out.
The design still worked to their advantage. At least, this way they’d know when company came calling.
Nicole rubbed her arms. “So you’re looking at me now, but you’re not speaking? Fine. Okay. Fine. You didn’t have to come after me, you know. No one made you do it.”
He stepped toward her. Her lips pressed together. He took a breath and could almost taste her. “Did you really think I wouldn’t come for you?” Of course, he would. He’d do just about anything for her.
That stubborn chin lifted as her eyes glittered. “No.” Soft but certain. “I knew you’d hunt for me. What happened...” Nicole cleared her throat. “What happened to the leader, Mike?”
One touch. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.” He turned away from her and paced out onto the balcony. Jazz music drifted up to him, and he saw the people strolling down the street. A motorcycle raced below him. “That coyote, he’s the one we have to worry about now. He wants you dead, and?—”
“You’re the one he wanted.” The floor squeaked behind him. She was coming closer. Her scent reached him. Wrapped around him. “Keenan...”
“Don’t touch me.”
He heard the sharp inhalation of her breath and knew she was hurt. Better to be hurt than dead. He grabbed the railing. “You need to get away from me. Get out of New Orleans and don’t come back.”
“You’re the one who brought me back!”
“My mistake.” So foolish. But he’d wanted her back in the city because she’d been happy here. She hadn’t been happy the whole time he’d been with her in Mexico and Texas. He’d thought if she came home, he could keep her safe. Make her happy.
Maybe even make her laugh. She hadn’t laughed once in all their time together, not laughed and actually meant it.
“I can’t touch you.” Anger snapped in her words. “You barely look at me, yet you were screwing me yesterday.”
More than screwing. “Things have changed.”
“You don’t want me anymore?” Pain darkened her voice.
“Wanting isn’t an option.”
“Dammit! What the hell is up with you? You never give me a simple yes or no answer to any question I ask you!”
Because he couldn’t. “Things are never simple.”
“You want me.” Certain and not so soft now.
He stared at the street below. The river was close, and the scent of the water drifted to his nose. “Lots of people in this world want what they can’t have—or what they don’t need.”
“You fight for me, then tell me to get away.” A choked laugh. Not the kind of laugh he’d wanted to hear from her. His fingers tightened on the balcony’s railing and the wrought iron groaned. “You’re giving me some seriously mixed messages, Keenan.”
“Then let me be very clear.” He took a breath. Face her. He turned slowly and looked right at her. She was pale. So very pale. Her eyes were big and dark. “I want you to get away from me, and I want you to get away now.” Truth. He’d never spoken truer words.
And she realized that. He saw the words sink in as she took a step back. Her hands came up, as if she’d cover her mouth, but she caught herself. Nicole stiffened. Shoved back her shoulders and dropped her hands. Bruised, bloody hands . He frowned.
But she was the one turning away now. “Watch your ass, angel. That coyote wants you, and he knows how to kill you.”
It was his turn to laugh, and his laugh was as cloaked with bitterness as hers had been. “Killing me isn’t easy.” The female shifter had learned that.
“He knows how,” Nicole retorted and she didn’t stop walking. “He won’t stop until he has your blood because he thinks he can use it to make his precious Angel’s Dust.” Her hand reached for the bedroom doorknob. It looked like she’d battered that hand to pieces.
His jaw clenched and he had to ask, “What happened to you? What did he do?”
“Chained me in a crypt. Left me as bait.” She threw a fast glance over her shoulder. “For you.”
That had his brows rising.
“ Angel’s Dust. He wants to use your blood because he thinks getting it will make him the big badass in the Other world.”
If Carlos could take out the level-ten demons with the Dust, he would be the badass that the Others feared.
“I told you,” she murmured, “this time, it wasn’t all about people wanting to take out the evil vamp. The coyote wanted your blood, not mine.”
Carlos had been willing to sacrifice Nicole to get what he wanted. The coyote would pay. Want blood? I’ll make sure you bleed. He pushed back the fury. Tried to, anyway. “What did he do to your hands?”
A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips. “Nothing. That was all me.”
She’d done that to herself?
“Vamps heal, you know. We heal from just about everything. Even the wounds that asshole angels give us.” She opened the door and walked away.
Keenan knew she was right. She’d get over him. She’d get past the pain that he’d glimpsed in her eyes. She’d heal.
It was a pity he couldn’t say the same thing.
His nostrils twitched. He hadn’t just scented the river on that balcony. “Az, you bastard, I know you were watching the whole time. I hope you’re happy now. ” Because he’d lost the fight against temptation.
He’d lost everything.
Keenan stepped forward and slammed his fist into the glass of the open balcony door.
“You’re just going to walk away?”
The drawling voice stopped Nicole as she neared the bottom of the staircase. She looked up and saw Sam strolling toward her. Dressed all in black, again. Black T-shirt. Black pants and boots.
“He wants me gone,” Nicole replied without flinching and kept her gaze up. “So it’s time for me to leave.” She’d survive. She’d made it for the last six months. She’d make it six more.
Screw the angels waiting.
She brushed by him and felt a little jolt of electricity zing her as her shoulder pressed against his.
“He was desperate to save you.”
Right. He’d looked desperate when she first saw him in that cemetery. Now he was just desperate to kick her butt out. Why?
Nicole forced her back to stay straight and tall as she walked. She wasn’t about to show weakness in front of Sam.
“Don’t you wonder how he killed that shifter?”
Yes, she did. But Keenan hadn’t exactly been the chatting type with her upstairs. “I thought she must have broken her neck. Maybe due to the angle she attacked?—”
“She didn’t break her neck.”
Nicole stopped walking.
“You didn’t think it through, did you? But then, I’m guessing you’re still so thirsty for blood that you can’t think very much at all right now, can you?”
She was thinking he was an ass. How was that for thinking ?
Nicole took another step toward the door and freedom.
He was there, of course. Instantly blocking her path.
“How do you do that?” she asked, rubbing a tired hand over her neck. “Nobody is supposed to move like that.”
“Different angels have different strengths.” His gaze drifted down her body. “And different weaknesses.” He caught her right wrist. She expected pain, a rough touch, but his hold was light. Almost gentle.
“The chains bit into you here.” His thumb slid over the dark red line that still marked her wrist. He caught her other hand and traced the similar mark. “And here.”
Nicole swallowed. “Yes.”
“He had you chained in one of those crypts. The juicy steak to bait the trap.”
At least someone seemed to understand what Carlos had planned. “Keenan won’t listen to me. He’s the one in danger right now, and?—”
“And here,” he kept talking, seeming to roll right over her words. “This is where you made the first break in your wrist when you realized you had to get out in order to save Keenan.”
She inclined her head toward him. “The first break is always the hardest, right?” Nicole tried to sound flippant.
His lips hitched up. “Bet you damn near shattered your bones to break loose. That’s why that college kid was sleeping near Laveau’s vault, eh? You needed a drink.” He still had her hands and didn’t seem to be showing signs of letting go. “I’m guessing you still need a drink. It takes a lot to overcome fire and broken bones.”
Yes, it did. “I’ll find a snack.”
“You sound so tough, but the words don’t really suit you, schoolteacher.”
What? He thought schoolteachers weren’t tough? Had Sam ever been in a school?
“Maybe after you have your bite, you’ll be able to think better. Then you’ll realize what’s really going on here.”
Jerk. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s happening? If you know why Keenan’s suddenly pushing me away, then just explain it to me.”
“Fine. He thinks he’s keeping you safe.”
“Bullshit.” She’d call it just as she saw it. “I think it’s more likely he decided to feed me to the wolves.” Or to the coyotes.
Sam shook his head. “Think about the dead girl. How did she die? ”
“I don’t know! She came at Keenan. They hit. His forearm shoved between her teeth, and she fell over.” Dead.
“One touch,” Sam murmured.
Her heart beat faster. “You’re not saying?—”
“He told you how it was for death angels, right? To take the soul, you just have to touch.”
“He’s touched me.” Plenty of times and in plenty of ways. Sam was lying to her. He had to be lying.
“There’s something else you should know.” He paused. “Angels, even fallen angels, can’t lie. So when I tell you something, trust me.”
She wouldn’t trust the guy as far as she could throw his shadow-winged self. “Keenan lost his powers when he fell.”
“No, he just forgot them.”
Uh, what?
“Falling isn’t easy.” His thumbs stroked her wrists. She tried to yank away but he wouldn’t let her go. “Once you get here, you’re lucky if you can even remember your own name.”
Keenan hadn’t remembered, not at first. He’d told her that.
“Then the memories start to filter back. When they first come, you think you have to be batshit crazy. But then—then you start to know. ”
Right. He’d fallen. Been there, done that. So, of course, Sam could speak from experience.
“You start to know ,” he said again, “and then, slowly, the powers come back.”
Her breath seemed to be freezing in her chest. “You’re telling me that Keenan can kill with a touch.” Her gaze fell to their hands. “That you can.” Then why are you touching me?
“If killing that way was what I wanted, yes, I could do it.” His eyes glinted.
Good thing he didn’t seem to want it then.
“Sometimes the powers are locked deep inside, and you have to chip away at the locked box to get them out.”
Her stomach started to knot.
“Sometimes, you just need the right key to open that box.” His smile stretched. “You were a wonderful key.”
If he weren’t holding her hands in that unbreakable grip, she would have punched him. Not the sweet move of a schoolteacher, but the hard right hook of a vamp who’d learned to fight dirty. “You’ve been using me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just how did Mike find out where we were hiding?”
His smile dimmed a little. “You think I led him to you?”
The hard suspicion in her gut said yes. “Didn’t you?”
His hold became harder. “I’m the one who helped Keenan find you in that cemetery.”
She realized he hadn’t answered her. Like Keenan, Sam couldn’t say just yes or no. “Angels can’t lie, but that doesn’t mean they have to tell the complete truth, right?” Because there was a difference. “They can avoid answering the question or they can—they can just twist their words. Twist the truth.”
He nodded. “I knew the first time I saw you that you’d be the key to making Keenan break.”
He’s getting lost in you. “I don’t want him to break.”
“Really? Don’t you want a little vengeance? Come on.” His voice lowered. “It’s just us. Keenan’s upstairs, busy hating the world. He won’t know what you say.”
“Let go of my hands.”
He didn’t let go. “I mean, if he’d just moved faster, just touched that vamp who attacked you that night faster , you’d still have your nice, picket-fence life. Hell, maybe you’d even have met your prince charming and be getting ready to settle down.”
Her claws were coming out.
“But he didn’t move fast enough, did he? Because of him, you suffered and you changed and you lost everything you held dear.”
She would have lost it anyway. No matter what Keenan had done, there wouldn’t have been a prince charming or a picket fence for her. “I don’t want vengeance.”
He laughed. “Good thing vamps can lie, huh?” Finally, he dropped her hands, but he still stood between her and the door. “In order to stir his powers,” he explained, “Keenan needed to let his emotions go. Angels don’t feel emotions, did you know that?”
She didn’t answer.
“So when they fall, they get slapped with them. The emotions are what strengthens us here and what weakens us.” His head cocked. “To get Keenan to conjure and control his fire, he needed rage. He got that rage when your life was threatened.”
And in order for him to kill…
“That’s right.” Sam’s eyes gleamed. “He just had to feel the killing fury. He needed to want to kill. When Big Mike attacked you...” A soft laugh. “The only thing Keenan wanted was to kill.”
“Good for you.” She glared at the jerk. “You let the tiger out of his cage.”
“No, I let the Fallen loose. Or, rather, you did.”
“Because you set us up!” Everything—was it just a game to him? And why did it matter? “No wonder Keenan didn’t want me close. If he touches me, he’ll kill me.”
That shouldn’t have made her feel relieved. It should have terrified her. Made her shove Sam aside and haul ass for the door. But, no, she was there thinking… Keenan wants me to leave so he can’t hurt me.
Figured. That was her angel. No, her Fallen.
“He won’t kill you.”
She blinked. Sam sounded real sure of that fact.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Sam exhaled on a hard sigh. “I said he kills because when he touches, he wants to give death.” One brow rose. “When he touches you, I bet death is the last thing he’s thinking about.”
Her teeth were burning. “I have to go.”
“To get blood?” He smiled at her. “Why go out? You can dine right here.”
“Keenan wasn’t exactly offering me a drink.”
“ I am.”
That shocked her. “You’d trust me? At your throat?” Oh, no, wait, this game she understood. “When I touch you, will you kill me?” Because he was Fallen, just like Keenan. Only maybe he could kill at will. He’d been on the human plane longer, so perhaps he’d gotten total control over all his powers.
He sighed softly. “I promise not to kill if you promise not to bite too hard.”
Her eyes measured him. “Are you hitting on me?” Impossible. No way.
He moved in a blur—didn’t he always?—and grabbed her hand once more. “You’re still living.”
Her heart slammed into her chest.
“Trouble’s coming after us. Those coyotes will be howling at the door soon. If you’re going to listen to Keenan and run out of here—which, by the way, I don’t recommend because they’ll just follow you and hunt you down eventually, so that idea pretty much fucking sucks.”
Uh, yeah, it did.
“Unless you’re leaving tonight,” he said, “you need to get strong, and you need to get strong fast. ”
His blood. She inhaled and caught his scent. She could hear the thunder of his blood. So close. Her tongue slipped over the edge of a fang. “Most Other think it’s an insult to get bitten.” Especially the shifters. She’d heard those beasts would rather die than get bit.
“I’m not most Other. ” His gaze burned her. “Besides, I know there’s pleasure as well as pain in the bite. That’s a mix I rather like.”
He was offering. She needed the blood. Nicole pushed up onto her toes and pressed her lips against his throat.
If the coyotes were coming—and she didn’t doubt that part of his story—then she wouldn’t have time to find other prey. Not that she’d ever been particularly good at finding prey to begin with.
Her fangs scraped his skin.
“That’s it,” he urged. “Have a taste.”
Her teeth pressed?—
“What the hell are you doing?”
She spun around, but didn’t go far. Sam had her clasped tightly to him, his arm a steel band around her waist.
Keenan thundered down the stairs, his eyes flashing black, then blue, as he raced toward them. “Get your hands off her! What are you thinking? You could kill her!”
Sam didn’t let her go. “Only if death was what I wanted.” She felt his shrug. “I don’t want death for her.”
“Let her go.”
“She’s holding me.”
Oh, crap, she was. Her hands were still on him. Wrapped around his forearm even though he’d let go of her waist in a flash that Nicole hadn’t even felt. She released him. “Keenan, it’s okay, I was just going to?—”
“Have a bite,” Sam finished and Keenan jumped down to the landing. “After all, you left her weak, Fallen. Burned, broken, weak. What did you expect her to do?”
Keenan staggered to a stop less than a foot away. His hand lifted, then his fingers clenched into a fist. “Nicole, get away from him. You can’t trust him. He’ll turn on you in an instant.”
Like that was something she didn’t know.
“You want her, then take her.” Sam’s voice was mocking. “Touch her, take her, if you think you’re strong enough.”
Oh, so that was what this was about. Nicole jabbed back with her elbow, as hard as she could. Sam grunted, and she sprang away from him. She didn’t hurry toward Keenan, but rather backed away from them both. “ She doesn’t need taking by anyone,” Nicole stated clearly.
But the two fallen angels were too busy glaring at each other to listen to her.
“Don’t ever touch her again,” Keenan ordered.
“I don’t touch her. You don’t touch her.” Sam shook his head. “That’s gonna be one lonely vampire.”
Keenan growled.
“Just back off,” she snapped right back at him. “You’re the one who told me to leave, remember?”
His head inclined in a tight nod.
“Dammit, she needs blood.” Sam threw his hands into the air. “Look at her. Look. ”
Keenan’s gaze darted to her. She saw the hunger in his eyes. The need. The fear.
“If you’re not going to help her, I will.” Sam reached for her.
“No,” Nicole denied, her voice firm. She’d been planning to pull back even before Keenan came flying down those stairs. “I’ll find another source.”
Keenan’s jaw tightened, and she caught the flash of fury in his gaze.
So did Sam. “Don’t like that, do you? Makes you jealous.” His voice lowered. “Those damn emotions. They’re real bitches, aren’t they?”
Keenan ignored him. “I won’t kill you,” he told her.
Sam laughed. “Isn’t that what this whole mess has always been about? You killing her.”
Keenan didn’t glance back at him. “If you leave now, you’ll have a good head start, sweet. I’ll make sure the coyotes don’t follow you.”
“Because it’s okay to kill them,” Sam asked, “but not her?”
Keenan’s gaze hardened even more. “Go, Nicole.”
He was really throwing her out the door. Fine. She spun away, took two steps, and locked her fingers around the doorknob.
“Thank you.”
His whisper stopped her cold. “For what? Leaving you?” So that he’d have to fight a vicious battle without her?
But Keenan didn’t say anything else. Damn him. Nicole looked over her shoulder, glaring. “ For what? ”
“Life.” He inclined his head. “Now I understand why you fought so hard.”
No, no, he was not bringing that up to her even as he was breaking her heart.
“Some things are worth fighting for,” Keenan murmured. He turned away and began to march back up the stairs.
“He can’t kill you.” Intensity hardened Sam’s voice.
Nicole’s tongue swiped over her lips even as her fingers tightened around the doorknob. “Th-that’s not what Az said.”
“Az is a dick.”
So was he. “Az said that if Keenan killed me...” And Keenan was halfway up the stairs now. His shoulders up. His head high. Couldn’t he have looked a little depressed? “Az said if Keenan killed me, he could go back.”
She turned the knob and opened the door.
Sam slammed it closed instantly. “ What? ” Lethally soft and vibrating with fury.
“You heard me.” Nicole didn’t doubt that for a moment. “Keenan can go back. He can get his life back. I just have to die.”
“There are no do-overs. Az knows that. He can’t bullshit his way through this mess!”
“I don’t think he was bullshitting.” She wasn’t going to run after Keenan even though it hurt to watch him walk away. “Now get out of my way, Sam.”
He blinked.
“Out of my way.”
“You’d leave him?” He edged away but watched her with curiosity in his eyes. “I didn’t count on that.”
She flashed her fangs. “Maybe I finally realized it was time to save my own skin.” She yanked open the door. The night waited for her. Dark and heavy.
She wouldn’t look back. Death was the only thing that waited behind her. She’d never wanted death.
Not when the doctor told her that the same cancer that had killer her mother was slowly destroying her own body.
Not when that vamp had slammed her onto the ground in that alley.
No, she’d never wanted death.
But she sure wanted her angel. She could almost feel his touch.
A touch that would kill.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Keenan didn’t turn when Sam burst into the room. His gaze was on the street below him. On Nicole. She moved so quickly through the shadows that he could barely keep track of her. “If she stayed here, she would’ve been dead by dawn.” Because he was a greedy bastard, and he wanted to touch. So badly.
“So you send her out alone? That was your genius plan?”
“No. My genius plan…” Nicole was turning the corner and heading out of sight now. He swallowed. “My plan is to track the coyotes before they track us and to kill them. Then Nicole won’t have to worry.” He’d thought she’d stay safe if he was with her. Watching her back every moment.
But that plan was too risky. Because when he was close?—
Touch. Take.
Human needs and emotions were, indeed, a bitch.
“It’s all because you think you can’t touch her, right?”
The question didn’t need answering.
Sam sighed. “I told you. You have to want to kill. When you touch her, you’re just gonna be wanting to screw.”
The always eloquent Sam.
“You don’t believe me? You know we can’t lie!”
Such a crock. Now Keenan did look Sam’s way. “Why bother to lie when the truth can be just as deceiving?” Sure, pretty it up, make the truth look righteous, but in the end, it was just as twisted.
“Fine. You don’t believe me. Then go find some human. Touch away. See if you kill or not.”
Keenan allowed himself a smile. “Actually, that’s exactly what I’m planning to do.” Then he leapt off the balcony. For an instant, he felt the whip of the wind, the roll of wings, then his feet slammed into the ground. His knees barely buckled.
He began to walk slowly down the street. No rush—he knew just where to find his prey.
The wind pushed around him. “You’re bullshitting me, aren’t you?” Sam wanted to know as he stepped to Keenan’s side.
“No.”
“You’re just gonna pick some random mortal?—”
“Not random.” Not random at all, but then, he’d long ago learned that nothing in this world was random. There was always a plan in place.
Sam whistled and kept perfect pace with him. “Going for some revenge, are you?”
He slanted a hard look Sam’s way. “Worried?”
The faint lines around Sam’s eyes tightened. “Sometimes when folks get a touch of power, it’s a little too much for them to handle. Too much temptation.”
“I’ve had that.” Far too much. He rounded the corner, caught Nicole’s scent, and stumbled, just for a moment.
But then he strode faster. The streets were crowded here. Thick with humans already drunk and with Other hiding in plain sight. And his prey.
Pete. Tattooed, redheaded, and still alive. For now.
“Get lost, Sam,” Keenan told his unwanted shadow.
But the other Fallen just grabbed his arm. “No.”
So now the Fallen had a conscience?
“The guy told you everything he knew.” A line appeared between Sam’s brows. “Why go after him again?”
“Because if I don’t stop him, he’ll be coming after me.”
“What?”
Keenan brushed him aside. “I’m not the only one who wants vengeance.” Sometimes, it was easy to understand the motives of men. Perhaps he was finally getting a handle on these emotions after all.
But then Sam shifted his stance and Keenan saw the prey that he was actually seeking. Pete was simply a means to an end. A wannabe without the hard-core spirit.
Buzz-cut Bo was the real threat—and the man was currently heading for the voodoo shop on the right corner. Doubtful that the bastard was going inside just for protection. More likely, he was heading in there to get some magic that he thought might work on a vamp.
Vengeance.
Keenan lunged forward. The crowd seemed to pass him in a blur. He made sure not to touch anyone. He didn’t want an innocent’s death on his hands. Don’t want to kill. Don’t want to kill. Just in case Sam wasn’t bullshitting, he kept that little mantra running through his head. And he didn’t want to kill Pete, but Bo was a different story.
He’d seen Bo before. Seen him at death scenes in the past. Bo liked to hurt his victims, vamps and humans. If anyone deserved getting put out of his misery, it would be Bo.
Keenan’s hand reached out. His fingers stretched. Bo spun around, finally seeming to sense the threat.
Pete let out a high-pitched yell.
But then someone blocked his prey. Someone with pale skin and midnight-black hair. The last person he’d expected to find on his hunt.
And Nicole was blocking his prey.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” she whispered as he froze. “But attacking humans? This isn’t you.”
It was now.
“Get away from them, Nicole.” Maybe she didn’t realize just who it was that she was protecting. She’d been on the ground, burning, so she might not have seen their faces so well. “They’re the ones who tried to kill you.”
“I’m not worried about them.” Her chin lifted. “I only care about you.”
His hand was still up and just inches from her face.
Sam cursed. The wind rushed against Keenan, and Sam vanished. Figured.
Behind Nicole, Bo bent down, grabbed at his boot—and came back up with his fingers clenched around a wooden stake.
“You should be worried, bitch!” Bo screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “I been waiting a long time to kill you!”
Nicole spun toward him, but Bo was already plunging that stake down, and when she turned, it gave him perfect aim at her heart.
Death.
Here. Now .
Keenan leapt forward and shoved Nicole out of the way, and his hand caught the stake and Bo’s hand. He caught them, then he crushed both the wood and the hand.
Bo screamed, the cry high and pain-filled, but the shriek ended mid-breath as Bo collapsed.
Dead.
“Keenan!”
His head whipped to the right. Nicole was on the ground, pushing to her feet. She was still too pale and weaving just a little. Probably because she hadn’t taken a drink before tracking after him.
“You touched me,” she told him and he wondered if she hadn’t just set him up, with herself as bait. “ You touched me. ”
“I had to.” If he hadn’t, she would have died. No choice.
Her gaze held his.
I didn’t kill her. He wanted to pull her close.
But she pulled him close instead. Around them, the crowd continued, not even noticing the dead man. Or maybe not caring.
“You’re touching me, and I’m not dying,” she seemed to breathe the words.
Thudding footsteps raced away. He glanced up in time to see Pete fleeing. Smart man.
Nicole’s fingers dug into his arms. “Sam was telling the truth.”
Just not all of it.
“It’s about what you want.” Her gaze searched his. “And no matter what Az may say, you don’t want to kill me.”
His forehead pressed against hers. “No.” He’d kill to protect her, had, and would again. But kill her ?
Not his plan. Not now, not damn well ever. “If you’d been wrong, if Sam had been wrong, you could have died, sweet.”
“According to the angels, I’m on borrowed time.” Her voice was flat. “Besides, I figured I needed to start trusting someone.”
A surprised rasp of a laugh escaped Keenan at that as he pulled her away from Bo’s body. Pretty soon, someone would notice the guy wasn’t just passed out from booze. “You decided to trust?” He led her into the thin alleyway between the buildings. The noise immediately dimmed. “And you figured you’d start by trusting Sam?”
“No.” Her fingers were curled around his. Holding tight. “You’re the one I trust.”
He stopped and turned slowly to face her. “Are you sure about that?”
“You could have your old life back. Could’ve had it for a while now.” Her head tilted as she studied him. “But the way I see it, you want something else more.”
You. He’d never tried to hide his desire, not even when he pushed her away.
“You’re not facing the coyotes alone.” Her hands lifted and pressed against his chest. “You’re not facing Az alone. From now on, we’re a package deal, got it?”
He wanted to get it. His body was hot, heavy, aching for her. He wanted her there, against the broken brick wall. Wanted her any place he could get her because time wasn’t on their side. “And if you die?”
Her lips curved the faintest bit. “Haven’t you noticed yet? I’m a little hard to kill.”
He kissed her. Had to. He didn’t crush his lips down on hers like he craved. He just caressed with his mouth and his tongue and he tasted her.
She moaned into his mouth. A breathy, hungry little sound that made him want her all the more.
But not there. Not with the stench of the alley around them. Not with onlookers so close. This time, it would be right.
He took her hand once more. “Come with me.” They’d go back to Sam’s safe house. He’d strip her and taste her and savor the time they had left.
Because he knew that time wouldn’t last long.
But I won’t kill her. His darkest fear and the reason he’d tried to force her away. One touch meant death. Yet for her, his touch only brought pleasure. He’d make sure that pleasure was all she ever knew from him.
For the others who came after her, he’d make sure they would only know pain.
Az stared down at the still body of Bobby “Bo” Reynolds. Reynolds hadn’t been a particularly nice or remarkable human. Sure, he’d had a few good moments, but Bo had let bitterness lead him to vicious acts.
Now, he was just dead.
Az had been the one to shuttle Bo’s soul. He’d seen Bo’s last moments. Az had known that Bo would try to go out fighting, and he had.
Az turned away from the body. Just a shell now. Keenan was already gone with his vampire. Running away from the scene of his crime without looking back once. No remorse. No guilt. Killing was becoming easier for him.
Keenan was changing. Adapting. Evolving?
Soon there would be no stopping him.
Az wouldn’t be able to ignore Keenan’s threat much longer. If he did, Az knew it could prove to be a fatal mistake.
So he flew away from the crowd. He let his wings brush through the air in powerful arcs as he sought the ones who would aid him. The coyotes were done mourning their dead. And at least they’d mourned. Some Other didn’t care about those who passed.
He landed near the coyotes and touched ground close to the alpha. The alpha—Carlos was his name—tensed as his nostrils flared. The coyotes wouldn’t be able to see him, but with their enhanced sense of smell, he knew they might pick up on his presence.
He was counting on their enhanced senses to help him. Because projecting his voice and energy for too long would be a dangerous drain on his strength.
“Find Sam.” To him, his voice boomed, but to the coyotes, it was probably little more than a whisper.
Carlos tensed, then spun around in the next breath. His gaze swept the clearing.
Helping fate could be a real pain. “Find Sammael.” He used all of his energy to blast at Carlos.
“Sammael,” Carlos repeated, voice soft and subdued.
“He’ll take you to the Fallen.” Projecting out of his realm was nearly impossible. But, at least he was dealing with a shifter. Humans hardly ever heard the whispers—correction, the roars of angels.
With his strength dwindling, he left the shifter and hoped that Carlos would be successful in his hunt.
It grated that he had to leave his fate in the hands of a cold-blooded killer. But sometimes, you couldn’t really choose your allies or your enemies. You just had to be ready to fight, to kill, or to die.
He was ready.
Was Keenan?