Chapter 6
SIX
Guilt is useless unless you learn from it.
ALISTAIR
The lights hurt my eyes. The raucous cheers make me homicidal. And Celine’s swaying ass as she storms away from me casts everything my thoughtless words have cost me into sharp relief.
Celine opens the door to the storage room, and I follow her inside, inhaling deeply.
If I try hard enough, I can still see us in here all those weeks ago when my fingers mapped her curves for the first time. Her eyes were locked on mine and glazed with pleasure. Tonight, she looks right through me. Like we were nothing.
“Angel,” I breathe. “Please allow me to apologize.”
“Go for it,” she says, her words crisp.
My heart skips a beat, and I reach for her, only to run into a briskly delivered stiff-arm.
“But . . . I-I thought,” I sputter, my hope turning to dust even as my throat burns.
“Thought what?” Celine snaps. “That one flimsy apology would erase what you said?”
She gestures to her metallic, shimmery lingerie, then jerks her thumb at the closed door.
“Out there, under those lights, on that stage, I work. I like to dance. It makes me feel powerful, and you’ve proven you can’t handle that.
You can apologize all you want, Alistair, but unless you can convince me you didn’t mean what you said—and we both know you did—then we’ve got nothing left to talk about. ”
I capture her hand and bring it to my lips, kissing her knuckles. “No,” I whisper, defeat churning low in my belly. “I didn’t mean a single godsdamned word—I was angry.”
“We have that in common,” she says.
What can I say to make it better? No words are right. I swallow them all—it’s what I should have done last night—and marinate in my misery.
My fingers ache to drag Celine into my arms. I want to make her so wild for me she forgets every stupid thing I’ve ever said. How many orgasms would it take to make her forget?
She stares at me, chin rigid, chest heaving as the bass rattles the closed door. I’ve never felt this far away from her. I won’t win her back tonight, but if she thinks I’m giving up . . .
“The owner of the Mouth of Hell is willing to meet with you tomorrow before the fight,” I say. “She didn’t reveal any details, but I poked around anyway. You’ll have to fight someone she thinks you can’t beat. If you succeed, you’ll be added to the rotation.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there,” she says.
Celine’s eyes spark with excitement, none of it focused on me. I look past her shoulders, hoping her wings will give me a better idea of what she’s feeling. They aren’t there.
A flicker of hope runs through me. “Where are your wings?” I ask. If she’s hiding them from me, she doesn’t want them to give her away.
The excitement in her eyes dims, and she levels me with a flat stare.
“They didn’t go with my outfit.” She spins to leave, and my fingers twitch.
With her hand on the doorknob, Celine freezes.
“There won’t be any more attempts on your life.
If you stay away from me, you’re safe to go on as you were before you got dragged into this mess. ”
No! Absolutely fucking not. Stay away from my angel? Only if I’m dead.
I reach for her because I can’t hold off any longer.
My fingers curl around nothing but air; she’s already gone. My mind races as I replay what she said. If Celine thinks I’m no longer in danger . . . I’ve missed something important.
She wasn’t interested in explaining, but I know a hazel-eyed killer who will.
“He’s her what?” I snarl.
“You heard me, Ali.” Luca tosses me an unimpressed look. “You picked an ideal fucking time to be a stupid, jealous fuck—you know that?”
Heat ripples off the alley pavement even though the sun abandoned the Fringes hours ago. The air is thick with spilled beer and my growing anger.
“We could kill him,” I suggest, glancing at the door of the Fang. “It would be easy.”
“Sure,” Luca drags the syllable out, glaring at me as if I’m chewing on his last nerve. “That’s a great fucking plan . . . if the goal is to make sure Celine never speaks to either of us again. Tell me what happened to Ciprian.”
“He was gone by sunset, like I told him to be.” I cross my arms, my helpless fury growing as I imagine the hulking angel in Celine’s apartment whispering vows or some other bullshit from their past in her ear. I hate it.
“Do you think he’s okay?” Luca asks.
I narrow my eyes. “Who cares?”
“Well, fuck . . . Me, I guess.” Luca’s lip ring winks in the dim glow of the streetlight and the Fang’s neon sign. “And you’re not as blasé as you act. You wouldn’t be this mad if you didn’t care.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel.” I poke his chest, and he slaps my hand down.
“Uh-uh. No way. You don’t get to snap at me, Ali.
I’m mad at you—you aren’t allowed to be mad at me.
Not when you’re the one who decided to be a dickhead and leave me alone in a tiny apartment with two angels dead set on pretending everything is fine when it isn’t.
” He tosses his arms wide. “You should feel the tension; it’s so thick you could choke on it.
And Celine’s in her stone-cold, can’t-be-fucked with anything mood. It’s stressing me—”
I grip the back of his neck and shut him up by slamming my lips to his.
I would kill to be there—doesn’t he know that? I didn’t plan to freak out and drive her away. Our kiss is furious, dripping with heat. I nibble on his full bottom lip, scraping my fangs over the delicate skin.
“None of that.” Luca pulls his lip free from my teeth.
“I’m sorry,” I grunt, pressing my body against his and nipping at his lips again until he kisses me back.
“Shut up,” he hisses, switching our positions until I’m the one with my back to the graffiti-covered concrete wall. “Fix it, Ali. Do you hear me?”
I nod, kissing down his neck, then drop my forehead against his shoulder. “I’ll figure it out; I swear. She’s not ready yet.”
“Godsdammit, I already told you that!”
“I won’t give up, Luca.”
“You better not.” He threads his fingers through my tangled hair and jerks my head up, sealing our lips again. My desire roars to life as his hard cock rubs against mine, and my fangs throb in my gums.
Luca still wants this; he hasn’t turned on me.
I cling to that realization, using it to soothe my panic. If I can earn Celine’s forgiveness, we can have what I envisioned before Casanell showed up and angels started falling from the sky.
“I’ve got to get back inside,” Luca whispers. “I have an angel to babysit and drinks to serve.”
“Don’t go,” I beg, wincing at how needy I sound.
Luca pulls away, raises his chin slightly, and meets my eyes. “Ali . . . She’s my priority, you know that, right?”
I nod, stepping back as a chill runs through my veins. The outsider. Always alone. Why am I surprised? “Of course,” I say calmly, trying to recover the stoicism I’m known for. “You better not do anything to jeopardize your place in that apartment.”
“I won’t.”
Luca kisses me again, but this time is different.
The press of his lips is soft. Is he trying to cheer me up?
When he drags his lips away from mine, I see the rush of blood in his cheeks.
I wasn’t imagining it: Luca Saratelli was trying to comfort me, and he’s embarrassed by it.
He shouldn’t be. It’s the only good thing that’s happened to me since that enclave asshole called Ciprian by his full name.
“Thanks,” I rasp, licking my bottom lip to get one last taste of him. “Be at the venue at sunset tomorrow. I’ll make the introduction . . . And Luca, if she’s serious about fighting there, she has to win. I can’t get her a spot otherwise.”
He sighs. “She’s more than serious about it; she’s an army of one preparing for war. Gods help anyone who stands in her way.”
He disappears into the Fang, but his words linger with me long after he’s gone.
I never want Celine to feel alone. My temper landed us here, allowing a shiny, stacked angel to swoop in and claim her attention at the exact moment our fragile unit fractured.
Self-loathing mixes with my determination, and I groan.
I smell his blood before I see him.
“Risking death already?” I mutter. “Life at the enclave must be grim.”
“I’m leaving town, but I’ll be back,” Ciprian says, stopping ten feet from me, his face bathed in shadow. “I want to make it clear again before I go that your secrets are safe with me.”
I scoff. “Which ones?”
“All of them.”
Examining my hand, I feign disinterest. “Run along then, back to your daddy.”
“Fuck you, Alistair.” Ciprian steps into the light. His pale face is mottled with bruises. Every inhale floods my nose with the smell of dried blood. “Are you so prejudiced that you would hold my parents against me? That’s not a popular mentality here on the Fringes.”
I roll my eyes. “That mentality only applies to non-enclave heirs.”
“Well”—Ciprian laughs, the sound dripping with bitterness—“if you need an enclave heir in your corner, you know how to find one.”
“Thanks for the warning, but I prefer my former allies stab me in the face, not lie to it.”
Ciprian sighs and sways, catching the wall with his hand to stay upright. “Cool. You can hate me all you want, Alistair. We both know my blood is the only reason you’re standing here.”
He backs away, swallowed by the night before I can tell him that’s exactly why I’m furious.