Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Never let sentimentality cloud reality.
CELINE
He hangs his head, then lifts it and squares his shoulders. “My name is Ciprian Casanell, that’s true, but I didn’t—”
“Get out of here,” I hiss, the truth of his admission smacking me with every syllable out of his mouth. Emotions assault me on all fronts, and I flinch away from them, bumping into someone, then lurching forward unsteadily.
I trusted Alistair with my body and my friendship, yet he called me a whore in front of dozens of our neighbors. The spiteful man in front of me is unrecognizable to me, and I wish I’d never let him past my guard. I want nothing to do with him.
As for Ciprian . . . my lack of judgment with him could get me killed, if my father doesn’t get the job done first. For fuck’s sake—I admitted to a murder while sitting in his lap. Alistair was right about one thing at least: I am a joke.
My wings spasm, treating us all to drips, flames, and knives. A shifter I’ve seen around cries out in pain as boiling water hits his face. Horrified, I back away, ignoring the panicked look on Ciprian’s face.
Luca shouts at me to stop. I don’t. I can’t listen anymore; I’ve got to get the fuck out of here before I accidentally kill someone. Storming down the hall, I shove Imani’s hand off my shoulder as she tries to pull me back, then wrench open the employee exit and break into a sprint.
Ciprian lied to me. That’s obvious, but the question is how? I run through our interactions. The ache in my heart intensifies as I remember how he looked last night—broken, on my bathroom floor. I gave him my worst fear and made myself vulnerable.
I allowed his charm to draw me in. I should have used my magic to test every word out of his mouth, but I was too afraid to give away who I was to see the threat in front of me. He was probably laughing at me the entire time.
How long do I have before Ciprian drags me away to face the enclave?
I cling to my anger, hating the weight of my hurt. It’s too heavy, even for me.
My fists clench. This is exactly why I didn’t want to get involved with anyone. I chose this life—risked everything to escape the one I was born into—and now everything I’ve built is crumbling around me because I gave them the power to hurt me.
My wings droop lower and lower until the tips graze the dirty asphalt. Fuck. This is pathetic. I’m strong enough to snap every bone in this city, yet here I am, stumbling along these dark, deserted streets half naked with tears rolling down my cheeks. I’m weak. They’ve made me this way.
“Celine! Baby, wait!” Luca’s shout is panicked. My heart throbs. What else will I learn tonight? Is Luca harboring some dark, terrible secret, too? Annoyed with myself for the self-pity, I pat my bare hips, growling when I realize I fled the club without my keys.
I stop, holding my head high and hardening my heart. Enough is enough. Obediently, my tears stop, and the desert heat dries the ones left on my cheeks.
So what if my almost-lover is a liar? Almost every other woman in the realms could say the same at some point in her life.
And who cares if my fake boyfriend thinks I’m a slut?
Men love to make their insecurities a woman’s problem.
The only thing that matters is what I think about myself—and I slept fucking great before my bed got crowded.
They can all kiss my ass, except for Luca, who hasn’t done anything wrong that I know of. I’m going to march back to the club and tell them all—I freeze. The air rustles, and the scent of celestial magic overwhelms my senses.
They’ve come for me at last. I feel no dread or fear, only grim determination. That ugly scene with Alistair in the Fang revealed a lot of things, including half of my angelic secrets, but if everyone knows about my truth, I might as well use it.
A pained groan reaches me, and my feet move before I even tell them to run. I’d recognize the sound anywhere: Luca, my Luca. He came after me and probably walked right into their trap. If they hurt a hair on his head, I’ll make them regret stepping foot into this realm.
Bursting around the corner, I bowl through a petrified guardian. I wince as the rough stone of his body breaks to pieces against my skin. It hurts like a bitch, but it also frees his sword. I snatch it from his crumbling fingers. He certainly doesn’t need it anymore.
Luca is fighting for his life, blood dripping from his face as he defends himself against four, no, five angels.
All of them are guardian tier, the tops of their heads and faces covered by armor.
Luca only turned the first one to stone by knocking his helm off first—I see it laying on the ground near his feet.
The others obviously noticed, and they’re keeping a tight guard around their heads.
“Surrender now,” I shout, testing the balance of my stolen sword before dropping into a fighting stance. It’s a style typically reserved for more uneven terrain, but my six-inch heels make the flat pavement plenty hazardous.
The guardians gawk at me, then stand at attention. One bows his head. I shudder. Weird ass sycophants.
“I will kill you all without blinking,” I snarl, advancing a step.
“Lady, we mean you no harm,” the biggest one says in the common tongue.
I pause. That felt like the truth, but it can’t be. “In what reality could breaking into my house, attacking my allies, and trying to assassinate me be defined as ‘no harm?’”
“I swear—”
Luca takes advantage of the distraction and punches the leader in the gut. “Don’t meet my eyes, baby,” he shouts, then narrowly avoids being decapitated by a blow.
“Pay attention,” I hiss. “I can handle myself.” It’s true, especially since the one I’m parrying with continues to pull his strikes and avoid . . . looking at my body? It doesn’t make sense.
I use my strength to shove my opponent into the concrete wall. His head makes contact, and he falls to the ground unconscious, slumping over at an awkward angle. “These assassins are terrible.”
“These four are fighting hard,” Luca complains. “And I don’t have a fucking weapon.”
He shoves one of the soldiers back into the other three. I sneak up behind them, swinging my borrowed sword like a baseball bat and smacking the flat of the blade into their heads in rapid succession.
They collapse, but since I wasn’t swinging to kill, they’ll live to see another day. With the headache they’ll have when they wake, though, they might wish they hadn’t.
Luca drags the back of his hand over his face, smearing blood across his forehead when he grazes the split above his eyebrow. He frowns at the unconscious guardians and nudges one with his toe. “Those weren’t killing blows.”
“I know,” I say, avoiding eye contact as I try to make sense of what happened. “Put your murder eyes away. Something about this wasn’t right.”
“No shit,” Luca snaps. “They jumped me out of the blue.”
“But they didn’t try to hurt me,” I point out. “Which is a pretty strange trait for an assassin.”
Luca considers that. “Maybe they thought you were too hot to kill.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I roll my eyes, my nerves too fried to engage in banter. “That one over there nearly stabbed himself while trying to avoid checking me out.”
The adrenaline of the fight fades and everything else comes rushing back. I prop myself up with the sword as my energy abandons me all at once. “Ciprian played me.”
“He played us,” Luca says, his voice painfully gentle. “And I’m not convinced we have the full story. None of it adds up.”
I frown. “He told us his name, what more do you need to know? He’s enclave.”
“If that’s true,” Luca says. “Then why are you walking around free? I heard you tell him about Roscoe last night.”
“I knew you were eavesdropping.” I try to muster some outrage, but I’m too tired and heartbroken to pull it off.
“I had to pee,” Luca says stubbornly. “And it’s a small apartment.”
I shrug. “Does it even matter why I haven’t been arrested? Maybe he wanted to stick around and get more dirt.”
Luca touches the split on his face and examines the blood on his fingers. “From everything I’ve heard about the enclave, that’s not how they work.”
“We don’t need to understand his motives,” I snap, pointing at the fallen soldiers around us with my sword. “We need to deal with this mess.”
“He saved Alistair, though.”
“Lucky us,” I snarl.
“Baby.” There’s enough quiet judgment in Luca’s voice that a thin outline of fire spreads around my wingtips.
I groan. We’re surrounded by bodies, dead, dismembered, or lights out, and my wings decide now is a good time to impersonate a road flare?
Frustrated, I toss up my hands. The sword feels a lot heavier than it did when I first grabbed it. “I don’t want to talk about either of them yet,” I say quietly, then turn as I hear footsteps running our way.
Imani skids around the corner in a silk robe, breathing heavily. “Celine, thank the gods you’re okay.” She takes in the crime scene around us, her mouth dropping open.
“I’m sorry I shoved you,” I tell her. “But you need to get away from here. I’ll call you after I get this cleaned up.”
“Celine, listen,” she begins.
“There isn’t time.” One of the unconscious angels groans, and Luca kicks him in the head. The sound cuts off abruptly. “Don’t kill him until we know what’s going on,” I hiss.
“Shut up!” Imani shouts.
I stare at her, shocked. In all our years of friendship, I’ve never seen her lose her temper before. Not with me at least.
“I ran out here to tell you that someone is here to see you.”
“Okay,” I whisper, ashamed of myself for pushing her this far. “Did they mention their name?”
Imani shakes her head, her eyebrows drawing tightly together. She shoots a worried glance at Luca. “He said . . . shit, Celine, he said he was your husband.”
I’m running before she can say another word.
It’s all I can do not to scream into the night and never stop, because here, on the Fringes of supernatural Las Vegas, we live every moment in the darkest of valleys, even when the sun is blinding.
And the truth none of us can ignore for long is this: we’re never safe.