by Heather Long
The fact that Seth may have shared his grace with me didn’t change the fact that he considered me his. And his alone.
Seth pulled back, seemingly surprised by the question. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. I saved her when you couldn’t.”
“Bullshit.” Tarus snorted.
“You tricked her into whatever scheme you were trying to cook up. Were you finally tired of watching us live our life? Was it too much for you? But why her?” Tarus pushed closer until his chest brushed Seth’s.
“You’re asking a lot of questions you don’t get the answers to. I won’t ask again. Leave.” Seth turned away, but Tarus grabbed his shoulder to stop him and punched the shit out of him.
“Tarus!” Zhan barked, pulling him away from Seth. “What the hell?”
I jumped to my feet, but then my brain started to work again. And it said that I was much safer over here.
A few drops of blood landed on the white tile floor as Seth wiped the corner of his mouth.
The other two brothers were having a small wrestling match as Zhan tried to hold Tarus back, but he looked as if he’d like nothing better than to jump on Seth’s ass again.
Meanwhile, I was over here ready for them to leave, but also way too curious about the answer. They said Seth had to have watched me die. After flying in his arms, I saw a different side to him. He was sweet, gentle. Even a little fun in his dry way.
Could he really have stood by, watching with popcorn, while the dickhead we shall not name slammed me into the wall repeatedly, and then threw me down flights of stairs?
Did that change his motives? His feelings?
Fuck, I didn’t know.
Tarus broke free of Zhan and crowded Seth, his soft white wings spreading to their full span. They nearly touched the wall on either side with the tips. No wonder these angels had enormous rooms and super tall ceilings in their homes.
“That’s what I think about that answer. Now, we aren’t leaving without your answer. And we aren’t leaving without Dahlia.”
“That will never happen.” Seth wiped his hand on his pants and straightened to his full height, which fell short of Tarus by about two inches. Damn, it sucked to stand up to someone when they were taller than you. It threw your game all off. Not that Seth seemed to let it bother him, he had too much anger for that. “I need to see to Dahlia, since she’s had nothing but shit handed to her all of her life, then you two and Bish continue to heap it on. Someone needs to look after her, and I’m sure you can both admit that was never you.”
Zhan gazed at me longingly, but he didn’t say otherwise. Tarus just gritted his jaw and glared at Seth as he stalked over to a large painting on the wall. Swinging it open like a door, it revealed a panel behind it. Not just any panel, it was like the motherboard of panels. But Seth didn’t push buttons or anything that I would have done with something like that. He laid his palm on a white square in the middle that had no buttons. It sunk in like it was made of a squishy material.
“Fuck,” Tarus grunted, and grabbed onto Zhan’s arm. “This isn’t over. We’ll be back. For answers, and for Dahlia.”
They popped out with a short burst of light. Seth lifted his hand and fixed the painting. It was almost like he was stalling as he adjusted it to make sure it wasn’t crooked.
It wasn’t. Pretty hard for something to be crooked when it had hinges.
When he finally turned around to face me, his emotions were completely closed off. I could tell nothing from his face.
“Dahlia,” he said softly in his rich, deep voice.
“Seth,” I returned.
For once, I was able to see him clearly. All the other times I was in his presence seemed fake now. This was the real Seth. His wings were tucked tight to his back, the crimson red more prominent against the dark violet under this light. The sides of his head were shaved, leaving only the light blond hair on the top of his head to be braided. It was so long, coming to at least his chest when it rested over his shoulder.
Something about this side of him seemed more substantial, like maybe he had only showed the world one layer instead of his entire being. Actually, that was probably exactly what he showed humans, what they wanted to see. Or maybe what they would be comfortable with.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he walked to the couch. He paused about a foot away, like he didn’t know if he should sit next to me or on a completely different piece of furniture.
I patted the cushion beside me. “Come, sit.”
There was a lot I needed to know, but he had been the only one to save me, even if only temporarily. And Bish, I didn’t even want to think about his I can make your existence better by a thousand-fold shit. So I gave in a very little bit.
“No, I’m not fine.”
“This is all my fault. I wouldn’t have taken you flying if I thought any of my brethren were after you. And for that, I am sorry.” He fisted a hand over his heart.
I waved his apology away. “No, that’s not what’s important here. We need to talk about this you watching me die thing. Because to be honest, that’s a little creepy and makes you seem kind of evil. You could have saved me for real, and yet you let me get attacked, you let…” I had to stop and take a deep breath. My throat was getting thick from emotion I had suppressed inside a perfect little compartment. Until now, it hadn’t really bothered me that I’d died. I mean, it bothered me, and I was worried about my mom, but I wanted to live my best life for what I had left of it.
But to know that there was another way, a different outcome if Seth had decided to step in a few minutes earlier. Hell, even a few seconds earlier. That was what got me.
“You let him kill me.” I snapped my fingers. “That night, you said you wanted to punish your brothers for abandoning me. Does that mean if they would have stepped in, I would have lived?”
He closed his eyes and blindly reached for my hands. I let him capture them because I was human and I really needed the intimate contact right now, damn it.
“Yes. If they had intervened, you would have lived. But they chose not to. My grace is not the same as theirs, so I did not have the same options afforded to me as they did. Understand that when I say I wished I could have helped, I mean that. I should not have done what I did, but I also could not watch you take your last breath on this Earth without knowing some happiness.”
Damn. That was good. But there were a lot of holes in his story. “Actually, you said you wanted revenge. There was no happiness mentioned when you made that deal with me. But let’s talk about something else first. Grace? I’ve heard that a few times now. Explain.”
His wings winked out of existence as he flopped back on the couch. Still holding my hand, he pulled me over his chest.
Okay, nice, but I would not be distracted. No matter how bad a case of lady blue balls I had and how I could feel the beginning of his erection on the inside of my thigh, I would not be distracted.
Yeah right. I was ten seconds away from losing my shit and jumping him, but somehow, I held it together.
I moaned as he threaded his finger through my hair, using just the right amount of pressure on my scalp. Was one’s head an erogenous zone? Because it totally should be.
“Grace. Every Keeper has a grace. A purpose, if you will. We all have a duty, and we’re expected to perform it to keep the world in balance.”
“Like good and evil kind of balance?”
He shrugged. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“The important thing is that you know that due to my grace, my hands were tied. I could not step in to save you. I shouldn’t even have shared my grace to extend your life, but I did.”
“Because you wanted revenge against your angel brothers.”
“No!” he barked, then took a deep breath through his nose. “We are not angels. We are Keepers. And it wasn’t solely for revenge. Although that was a perk. I’ve come to see that that was an error. I never should have let you anywhere near those traitors.” Sliding his
other hand across my lower back, he pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “I won’t be making that mistake again. You have my vow.”
I propped my chin on his chest and stared into his eyes. He seemed so earnest, but something told me this wasn’t the complete truth.
Okay, nice Dahlia was gone. It was time to have a come to Jesus meeting.
12
‘Ignorance is bliss’? Pfft. You’d only say that if you never met Seth. Trust me on this one. - Dahlia
Seth
Admitting he should never have sent her anywhere near his brothers freed something inside of him. He didn’t want to look too closely at that piece. Instead, he focused on the silken thickness of her hair and the way her dark eyes softened as she stared at him. He could lose himself in those eyes quite easily. The fact that he could at all should disturb him, but Seth rejected the notion. The time left with Dahlia was finite.
There was no room for hesitation or regret.
“You’re not lying to me,” she said quietly. “Yet, you aren’t telling me the whole truth.” The words jolted him. The first time she’d accused him of lying had infuriated him. Seth did not lie. “I’m giving you one last chance to be honest with me.”
Curiosity flooded him. “Or what?”
Exhaling, she straightened until she pulled her hair free of his hands and no longer draped his chest. Instead, she sat astride his lap and lifted her brows. “Or I’ll take a step off that balcony and finish what began on those stairs.”
Shock jolted through him, and he clamped his hands on her hips. The doors themselves slammed shut. “Why would you threaten that?”
“Because you’re holding something back, and I’m like this ball being tossed between all of you. I’m tired of getting chewed on. Maybe I had a crap life,” she said with an almost careless shrug. “I always did my best. I always tried, anyway. If this is how it ends…then I just want you to keep your promise to ease it for my mother.”
Shock turned to quiet fury. “You’re giving up?”
Her laugh caught him completely off guard. “What is there to give up? I’m dead, remember?”
“You are not dead.” He sat up, cupping her cheek with one hand while keeping her close with the other still gripping her hip. She would never get near that balcony after that threat. “Would you feel this if you were dead?” He slid the hand down from her cheek to her breast. The simple parting of her lips as she exhaled filled him with inexplicable joy. The fact that her nipple tensed under the stroke of his thumb, even through the layers of cloth, added another spike to the lust she’d ignited during the flight, then stoked when she stroked his wings.
“Kissing. Petting. Grinding.” She ticked off each one with a little curl of disdain. “I’ve definitely felt all of those. And yes, I can feel that boner you’re sporting—impressive—but what I want are your words. You said you couldn’t save me.”
Dislike flared through him at the mention of his failure. “I couldn’t. My grace… I am Judgment.” Giving voice to it didn’t make it easier.
“Well that just cleared it right up for me,” she murmured, but instead of pulling away, she leaned into the contact of his hand, and he massaged the soft curve of her breast. He should tug away the clothing so he could play with it more fully. It had been far too long since he took a lover.
The last one had been…
A finger tracing his cheek dragged his attention back to the beautiful woman in front of him. No, not just a beautiful woman. Dahlia. She teased a path to his beard, then began to stroke him like he was a pet, and he lifted his chin to allow her better access.
He couldn’t remember his last lover. The image of that vague woman was as nebulous as the when. It had been a long time.
More, he couldn’t imagine wanting her the way he did the vivacious beauty studying him right now.
“Judgment,” he said with a slow sigh, wanting—no, not wanting, needing her to understand. “Judgment requires considered decisions. While I may be able to anticipate, my actions are restrained until the decision has been reached.”
Confusion clouded her eyes.
“Dahlia,” he whispered, almost pleading in her name. “Until he kicked you that last time to shove you down that last flight, he had not reached a decision. Until that exact moment, I didn’t know what I would do. You were the first human I’d seen them respond to in centuries. Maybe even a millennia. They abandoned their duty and chose to fall. You—you tempted them, and I followed to try and understand. When the one you called Alex took that last strike, I had to act. I couldn’t turn back the clock before he would have killed you, but I could stop it, for a little while.”
Her lashes dipped, hiding those stunning eyes from him, and he dragged his hand from her breast to her chin. Nudging her face up, he studied her. “I promised you I would punish him if you would help me punish them. Because I wanted them to suffer for what had been done to you.”
The corner of her mouth kicked up, the barest hint of a smile, and some of his unease fled. “I don’t know whether that’s romantic or insane.”
“It is entirely possible it is both.” Many other Keepers would think so. “The sharing of grace, while not strictly forbidden, is not an act to be taken lightly. It changes both.”
It had changed him. Maybe. Perhaps it would explain his need to protect her now. To keep her from Tarus and Zhan. It definitely meant he would not allow Bish near her again. Holding her tether like that… The idea that the bastard had come here to steal her in the first place fired rage through him.
Dahlia closed her soft hand over his braid then looped it around her palm. The gentle tug resonated through him. She tilted her head back, her gaze seeming to search his again. “Will it hurt you?”
The question staggered him. “Will what hurt me?”
“Sharing your grace with me?”
If it harmed him, it didn’t matter. It was done. “It doesn’t matter.”
No sooner did the words leave his mouth, than she yanked his braid, and it tugged his head up. “It damn well matters to me.” Irritation blazed in those sensuous dark eyes. “Is it hurting you in some way?”
Something like wonder passed through him. Shifting his grip on her chin to cup it, he stroked his thumb over her lower lip, and she opened her mouth. It was all he waited for before he narrowed the distance and kissed her.
The first time he kissed her, he’d poured his grace into her. It had been a kiss born of need. The need to save her. He’d told himself it was to punish his brothers, but Dahlia was right. That had been a lie. Or, while not wholly a lie, it had been a dishonest truth. More easy to swallow than he just didn’t want to see the candle of her life flicker out so cruelly and abruptly.
The second time he kissed her, he’d shared nothing of his grace. It had been a kiss born of frustration. The frustration ignited by seeing her cradled in Tarus’ arms so soon after she’d come apart for Zhan. When they’d had her tied to that wall, he could only see from a distance. Their home was warded against intrusion, but in their distraction, he’d been able to get close.
They’d taken his precious gift and squandered it. The time spent as they kissed and petted her while she blazed back at them had been the longest moments of his existence. What he’d intended to serve as their punishment left him the one suffering.
When Tarus dumped her back at Sinner’s, Seth had been right there to swoop her up. Kissing her the first time shifted something fundamental. The sharing of his grace, an act he had never committed before—not even for his brothers—changed something in him. Kissing her the second time had only opened his eyes to the fact. Opened his eyes and sent him on a desperate mission…
Dahlia moaned against his mouth as he delved his tongue against hers. The sweetness of kissing her this third time outshone the first two. Everything else fell away, leaving only Dahlia. Her grip on his braid held him to her, not that he had any intention of moving away.
Unlike humans, he didn’t need to breathe. The only air
he allowed to separate their mouths was when she gasped, and then he parted from her, only long enough to let her suck in a breath before he kissed her again. In some ways, it was like riding the perfect thermal and chasing the storm. Every stroke of her tongue against his begged him to devour her and be devoured in return.
“Seth,” she managed in a hungry whisper when he lifted his head, and the intimacy in that single syllable captivated him. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips swollen, and her whole body soft against him. Studying her, he found himself genuinely torn between kissing her again and stripping her out of her clothes so he could kiss her everywhere.
The gentle tug of his braid pulled his gaze to hers again. The roll of her hips ground her against his erection, and it sent sparks of wanton need shooting through his system. “If you bamf on me again, Seth,” she whispered huskily, “I swear I’ll never suck you off, even if you beg.”
That was a threat.
But at the same time, the haze darkening her eyes even further, if that was even possible, promised him an endless dive if he would only let go. Rising abruptly, he slid a hand around to her ass to keep her pressed to him. Not that she shifted even an inch away as her thighs locked to his hips. Every step proved a sensual torment as he carried her into his room.
Kissing her again, he fisted her hair to hold her still. Dahlia had none of that, the rock and grind of her hips pressing against his threatened madness. When he’d first set her in this bed after he’d pushed her breath back into her, he’d sat here for hours and watched her sleep. At the time, he’d told himself it was a duty to look after her.
Now, he understood it for what it was. A prologue to this moment. Never had any female, human or Keeper, kissed him the way Dahlia did. It took every effort to set her on the bed and not follow her down. Her complaint came out a growl. Laughing softly, he tugged her head back until that languid gaze of hers opened to his.
“I need you naked,” he told her, and the explanation seemed to satisfy the demand there. She released his braid, but only to scramble for her shirt. His fingers itched with the need to help her, and at the same time, he savored the way she dragged the top off and revealed the toned and soft skin beneath. Alabaster like a cloud, though the darkness of her hair and eyes only enhanced her perfect paleness. She was still warm though, and the red flush suffusing her cheeks spread down to her breasts.
