Something in common.
They both hunted demons.
He had fought the temptation to brush the black strands of her hair with his fingers, smoothing them against the white pillow, and had yearned for her to open her eyes and look at him, to wake and speak with him. She had stunning deep blue eyes surrounded by long dark lashes that added to her sinful wicked air. He had wanted to see them again and see if he wasn’t the only one considering crazy things.
He had gone to his room and tried to sleep, but it had been impossible when he had known that she was lying in the room across the living area of the suite.
She was definitely a distraction.
A beautiful distraction.
She walked beside him, tall, graceful and head held high. As he looked at her, that head slowly turned and her blue eyes met his. The streetlights stole the colour from them, but he could remember it vividly. Not bright like the sky, but deep like the ocean.
“So, how well do you know London?” Taylor led him down another road.
They were heading back towards where they had met the demon last night. She had insisted that they started there. It was a dead end, but for some reason he couldn’t help letting her have her own way.
“A little.” Around several hundred years’ worth of experience but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
She was using her knowledge of the city and its demons as her reason for being around him and he didn’t want her to leave.
He stopped and watched her walk on ahead, her hips swaying just enough to draw his attention. The dark blue jeans she wore were snug against her bottom and hips, emphasising their shape to him.
What was he doing?
He reasoned with himself that she could fight and that was the only reason he was loath to let her go. If he did, she would go out hunting again and could end up hurt. He didn’t want that to happen.
He was doing his duty as an angel by protecting her and keeping her with him.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he was attracted to her.
If anyone discovered that, he would be in serious trouble. Having relations with a mortal was one thing. Falling for a demon was another.
Part-demon.
Einar erased that last thought. Reasoning like that wouldn’t stand up in Heaven’s Court. If accused of entering into a liaison with a demon, he couldn’t retort that she was only part-demon. Her blood made her who she was. Demon or part-demon, it was the same to an angel.
She was off limits.
He realised that she had stopped a short distance away and was standing with her hands on her hips, watching him with a scowl.
He strode towards her and her look softened as he neared, a touch of colour darkening her cheeks. She dropped her gaze and turned her face away. He studied her reaction. It confused him. Several times, she had done something similar. She was bold and brash, had a smart mouth and was prone to fighting him on everything, but there were times when she turned shy and couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
Why?
His eyes slowly widened.
Was he the reason she wanted to stay and help him? Was it because she was attracted to him too?
She knew he was an angel. She knew it was forbidden on both sides and that nothing could happen between them.
Didn’t she care?
Or was she struggling against desire as much as he was?
Einar followed her as she started moving again, lost in thoughts that plagued him, refused to go away even as he tried to focus on his surroundings and his mission.
They entered the dark park and he came up to walk beside her, remaining close in case any other demons were in the area.
He had been right last night, but on both counts.
They were both heading for trouble.
“Take a look at this.” She touched his hand, jolting him out of his thoughts.
Her fingertips brushed his palm and he stared at their joined hands as heat rolled up his arm, had his chest feeling strangely light and his blood rushing in his veins.
Why did something so forbidden have to feel so right?
He lifted his eyes from their hands to her face. Her eyes widened as she looked down at their hands and she quickly released him. She fidgeted with the tears in the sleeve of her biker jacket, looked as if she wanted to say something, and then crouched.
What was she doing?
He frowned down at her. It hit him that they had reached the spot where the demon had turned to ash on him last night.
She touched the dirty patch on the path, fingers traversing it as though she was reading something in the lingering ashes like a psychic reading a palm. A gypsy had done that for him once. She had said that he had a dark future ahead of him. All angels knew they had a dark future. It was called the Apocalypse.
“Picking up anything?” he said in a teasing tone and then reined himself in.
There was no need to encourage her and make her realise that he liked having her around. She would only start torturing him again as she had done last night on the threshold of the hotel suite. The feel of her fingers in his hair, loosening the mousy lengths from his ponytail, had been divine. She had pushed him to the limit with such a simple, small thing, and she had known it. He had seen it in the way she had dropped her hands into her lap and focused there, as though ashamed to have done such a thing with him.
An angel.
And a demon.
It was all very wrong.
“Only that you don’t believe in this sort of thing.” Taylor’s eyes narrowed and she leaned over the charred ground. “It wasn’t the Devil.”
Tell him something he didn’t already know.
“It wasn’t the demon’s friends either... the two you want. This sort of thing isn’t possible for them. This is something else. Judgement by someone else.” She looked up at him.
She had his attention now. No more teasing her. She could read something in the dirt beneath her palm. Either that or she knew demons better than he had thought.
Einar crouched beside her and held his hand out over the ash.
Pale light filtered down from his palm and stretched out to cover the entire circle on the pavement. The ash swirled around and then lifted up, drifting towards his palm.
Taylor’s soft gasp threatened to shatter his focus.
He concentrated, not allowing her to distract him. It was always difficult to send samples in this manner. If he lost focus, he would have to start all over again, and he didn’t want to waste his strength on a second attempt.
The ash reached his hand and disappeared into his palm. When he had collected enough, he fisted his fingers and the light blinked out.
“What did you do?” Her eyes were wide in the low light, fixed on him.
“Magic.” He stood and wiped his dirty palm on the rear of his loincloth.
“Liar.” She came to stand toe-to-toe with him and stared up into his eyes.
She really was beautiful, especially when she was angry or annoyed. The fire that flashed in her eyes, that set her jaw and made her stand rod-straight, ready for a fight, drew him to her like a moth to flame, and everyone knew how badly that one ended.
He looked at his stained palm. “The lab will be able to analyse the sample. They will contact me when they know something.”
“Angels have labs?”
“We have technology far superior to that which the humans use. It makes life easier when we can ascertain the type of demon responsible and check the database to see their habits. It is far quicker to catch them then.” He nearly smiled when she looked disappointed, as though he had just told her that Santa Claus didn’t exist. “What, you think that angels are all-powerful and have the knowledge of the ages stuffed into our heads? That we see everything and know everything, and can find a wrongdoer at the drop of a pin?”
“Next you’ll be telling me you don’t dance on the heads of those pins.” She raked her gaze over him, a single dark eyebrow rising as she did so. Her
voice dropped to a sultry whisper. “Although you’re a little big for pinhead dancing.”
His blood burned at the sight of the desire written plainly across her face and in her tone. He fought the temptation to show her just how big he was, and just what sort of dance with her he had in mind, and won this time.
Her blue gaze met his in the dim night.
“There are some things I do not have to be an angel to see.” He reached out to touch her cheek but she backed away and busied herself with looking at the charred circle on the path.
He curled his fingers into a fist and sighed. Maybe he was wrong about her and she was only teasing him.
He closed his eyes.
Maybe he shouldn’t care.
Maybe he should call it quits now and leave her before things got even more complicated.
“Listen, Taylor—” Einar froze, his senses blaring danger. She turned towards him, her eyes wide and expectant. “Get down!”
He grabbed her, wrapped her in his arms, and hit the ground.
CHAPTER 6
Taylor’s breath left her on impact with the hard cold grass. Einar’s weight pressed down on her, both delicious and painful. His thick toned left thigh wedged between her legs, against the apex of them, and her face was squashed against his shoulder. He had his hands over her head, cradling her to him, and everything was very dark.
She realised that his wings were covering her.
And that they weren’t alone.
There had been a loud bang when he had grabbed her, and then a bright flash.
The smell of burning sulphur filled her nostrils, acrid and choking. Something straight out of Hell had come to pay her a visit, and she wasn’t one to disappoint her guests.
The moment Einar moved off her, she was on her feet.
She reached over her head to grab her blade and growled when she remembered that she had let Einar convince her to leave it in his hotel suite, so they didn’t look conspicuous when walking the streets of London. She had never had a problem with carrying the blade before. Normally she wore it strapped to her back beneath her jacket. No one saw it there.
Why had she been so weak and let Einar have his way?
She should have told him to go to Hell and taken the weapon anyway.
She glared at him when he stepped in front of her, shielding her as he had last night, as though she needed his protection. Her gaze drifted down to his bare waist and the sword hanging beside his left hip.
Well, he could make up for leading her into this situation poorly armed.
Taylor raced past him, grabbing his sword on the way, and ignored his shout of protest.
She narrowed her eyes on the demon in front of her. Huge, horned, black as sin, and belching smoke and flames in the darkness.
Had someone released this beast to make her and Einar think it had been the one to kill the demon last night?
They were underestimating her.
She knew her demons and this one was nothing more than a heavy hand, and it certainly didn’t have the ability to make a demon disappear so neatly. If it killed her, she would be a long dark bloody streak on ground pockmarked by huge craters.
Subtlety wasn’t in its repertoire.
As if to prove her point, it opened its mouth and released a massive fireball that shot towards her.
Taylor dived to her left, narrowly avoiding the blast, feeling the heat of it scalding her boots.
The world shook when the flaming missile carved up the dirt and a shockwave caught her. She slammed into the ground, rolled onto her feet and kept running at the demon.
A cursory glance around the poorly lit park revealed that Einar was gone.
She refused to believe that the demon could have got him so easily but the thought that it might have distracted her enough that she almost didn’t notice the second fireball.
It flashed past her, so hot and close that if she hadn’t been wearing her thick leather jacket, her arm would have been toast. She flinched and doubled her pace, coming around the demon.
It moved slowly, belching fiery missiles at her, and she managed to get ahead of them.
Taylor changed course and headed straight for the demon, raising her borrowed sword at the same time. It was heavier than her own one but she could handle it. Maybe.
She yelled and swiped at the demon, barely reaching its knees. It growled, exposing long black teeth that could easily crush her head. In fact, it could probably eat her in one bite.
It didn’t stop her. She used her fear as fuel to keep her going. It was kill or be killed, and she wasn’t going to die here tonight.
The demon’s bright flaming eyes tracked her as it lumbered backwards, avoiding her blows. Smoke billowed from between its jagged teeth, the occasional spark joining it and dancing around in the night like a firefly before dying away. She attacked again, hacking the demon’s black hand and dodging when it swiped at her as though she was nothing more than an insect bothering it.
Where the hell was Einar?
She glanced around again at the empty park.
Had he done a runner?
Was he going to let her fight alone just because she had taken his sword? Surely, he had other weapons at his disposal? He had powers that he could probably use in a fight somehow. She didn’t. It was only fair that she got to have the sword.
The demon roared and a stream of fire shot towards her from its mouth. She leaped, rolled and dived, avoiding becoming nothing more than a dark line on the dirt. She was seriously not going to die here tonight.
This demon was.
Taylor yelled back at the demon and swung her blade.
A bright white light shot down over the demon, blinding her, and then a shockwave hurled her backwards.
She hit the wet grass hard, skidding along it and grimacing as she lost her grip on the sword. When she came to a halt, she immediately looked towards the demon and stilled.
A shaft of light encased it, reaching high into the sky like a searchlight beam. She followed it upwards and stopped when she saw Einar. He hovered far above the ground, steadily beating his wings, the white light glinting off his dark armour and highlighting him.
When she had figured he had powers he could use to fight the demon, she hadn’t quite been imagining this.
She pushed onto her feet, dusted the blades of grass and globs of mud off her dark jeans, and stomped towards the long sword where it lay on the grass. She picked it up and cautiously approached the beam of light and the demon frozen within it.
Looked up at Einar.
He slowly descended, a somewhat smug look on his face.
Show off.
He landed in front of her, his expression fixed in a way that made her think he wanted praise for what he had done. Okay, it was impressive, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. She wasn’t into rubbing men’s egos.
“What the hell was that about? You could have hit me too!” She prodded him in the breastplate with the tip of the sword and he frowned at her. She frowned right back at him. “You threw me halfway to Hell with that stupid trick.”
“You were in the way.” He calmly brushed the sword aside with the back of his hand.
“What, so you thought you’d take a shot and hope you’d only toss me through the air and not trap me too?” She planted her free hand against her hip, scowled at him and waited to hear his excuse.
“What else was I supposed to do?” He hiked his broad shoulders in a shrug and furled his tawny wings against his back. “You were in the way. Besides, I have done this enough times to be accurate in my aim.”
“Accurate my arse.” She rubbed her backside. It still ached from the impact.
“Are you hurt?” The anger in his expression melted away to reveal concern.
Damn he looked good when he was worried about her.
She couldn’t be mad at him when he was looking as sweet as a puppy dog. She blamed her human blood for such a weakness. If she had been all demon, she would have been able to
keep hold of her fury just as she wanted to.
But then, if she had been all demon, Einar would have let her die last night, and he certainly wouldn’t be looking at her with such warmth.
“I’ll live,” she muttered and shifted her attention to the black demon in the shaft of light, hoping it would move Einar’s focus there too. “What’ll happen to it?”
Einar waved his hand and the demon began to ascend towards the dark sky. Her gaze tracked it, watching it getting smaller and smaller, and then it disappeared from view and the beam of light flickered and died, leaving the park in near-darkness again.
“We will question it. It may provide us with answers.” He turned towards her and held out his hand.
Taylor stared at it.
He cleared his throat, rolled his fingers and gave her an unimpressed look. She jolted when she remembered that she had his sword. She handed it to him. He shook his head and held his other hand out, as though he wanted something else.
She swallowed.
Her hand?
She couldn’t do that.
“I just want to heal you,” he whispered, sultry and low, in a way that conjured wicked thoughts and said he wanted to do a lot more than heal her with his touch.
“I’m fine.” She patted herself all over, smiling the whole time, hoping to emphasise her point so he wouldn’t try to touch her. She wasn’t sure that she would be able to resist him if he did. She had to think of some way to distract him from the fact that he had hurt her. “So... labs, interrogation teams, what else is new in Heaven?”
He raised a single dark eyebrow and took his hand back. He slid the sword into the sheath hanging from his waist and shrugged as it clanked against the pointed slats of the armour around his hips.
“Nothing. We have been working this way for centuries.” He checked her over again, looking as if he was going to make another attempt to heal her.
She raked her gaze over him, using him as a distraction now. “What sort of angel are you exactly? The last one I met had white wings. I don’t remember meeting your sort before.”
He gave her a hard look. Not happy about the way she was talking about him? He was going to have to get used to it. It was the easiest way of making him maintain his distance.
Warrior Angel Page 4
