Wicked Nights aotd-1

by Gena Showalter

  “Let me go,” she choked out.

  His lips curled into another grin, this one slow and as dark as his soul. “Why would I do that? I must keep my strength up. And do you know how I keep my strength up, my precious?”

  Tremor, tremor. “N-no.”

  Perhaps not, but she suspected. “Well, it will be my pleasure to show you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  AS ONE DAY SLID INTO a second, Annabelle remembered the joys of Zacharel’s home and summoned a few weapons. A girl had to be prepared when evil monsters chased her. Sadly, nothing appeared in her hands—now shockingly healed—or anywhere else, which meant she wasn’t in another cloud. Bummer. She’d already searched every corner, every piece of furniture, but had found nothing. Not even a change of clothes.

  Now she patted down the walls, probing for any doorways the demons might attempt to enter, but there wasn’t so much as a seam, as if the only way to enter or leave was through…teleporting? Was that what Koldo was doing, popping in and out as he did?

  And why did the guy want Zacharel out of the heavens? she wondered for the thousandth time. Hopefully she hadn’t made a fatal mistake with their exchange.

  Fatal. The thought returned her attention to Zacharel. Fresh blood had soaked his robe anew, causing the material to cling to his body, the crimson obscene against the purity of the white. In the bathroom, she gathered the few remaining washrags and a small basin of water. But by the time she had the supplies situated around the injured angel, the blood had already disappeared.

  How was he doing that? The phenomenon had happened several times before, and she had hoped his injuries had somehow healed. But each time before, that hope had been in vain. Gently she raised the hem of the robe, baring his legs—disappointment shot through her. He was still bruised, parts of him still twisted at odd angles. He had deep gashes everywhere, and his abdomen… Oh, poor Zacharel. No, his injuries hadn’t healed this time, either. He was dying.

  Her parents, dying…dead. No longer savable, gone forever.

  Oh, no. She wasn’t going there.

  She forced herself to think about something else. Like, how, for the first time in four years, she had purpose, an attainable goal, a safety net, and if she were being completely honest with herself, a gargantuan attraction to a man. Zacharel’s hypnotic beauty mesmerized her. His insistence on the truth delighted her. His strength fascinated her. He had protected her, and he had intrigued her during their few conversations. He wasn’t a smiler, but she suspected she’d come pretty close to amusing him a few times.

  I want him to live. He was… She was… She…

  Had fallen asleep, she realized, waking to find her chin pressed against her sternum. Exhaustion overwhelming her, she took up a post at the foot of the bed, ready to leap into action if anyone entered the room.

  Where are you, Koldo? The silence in the room was broken only by the harshness of her breathing. She despised that silence—until Zacharel began to release one agonized groan after another.

  She returned to his side, cooed at him, but his groans only increased in volume. He thrashed, blood soaking him, the robe and the comforter beneath him. Soon he practically floated in a pool of the stuff.

  How much more could he stand to lose?

  “Kill them,” he gritted out. “Must kill them.”

  Kill the demons? Probably. They’d done this to him, after all.

  “Kill them.”

  “Don’t worry. You did. You killed them,” she said softly.

  She had no medical knowledge, no idea what to do to help Zacharel. Applying pressure to the wound, the one thing she did know to do when someone was bleeding, wouldn’t help in this case. She would be applying pressure directly to…she gagged…and might do more damage.

  “Kill them!”

  “You did, honey. You did.” Annabelle spread the faux-fur coat Zacharel had given her on the bed and stretched out beside him, tracing her fingertips over his brow. His skin burned with fever, the cold long gone. He leaned into the touch, his grimace easing the slightest bit.

  “Save her.”

  Her—Annabelle? That, she wasn’t as sure about. “You did. You saved her.”

  “I…return,” a broken voice said from across the room.

  She jolted in surprise, then nearly screamed in horror when she spied Koldo. Or, more accurately, what was left of Koldo.

  His hands were clasped to his chest, his big fingers wrapped around something clear and thin. As he dropped to his knees, no longer able to hold his own weight, blood dripped from his now-shaved head. Gone was his robe. He was shirtless, with loose, low-hanging pants covering his legs.

  Annabelle eased from the bed to race to his side. “What happened to you?”

  “Make…him…drink.” Koldo fell face-first to the floor, his arms extending, the clear, thin something—a vial—rolling from his now-open grip.

  His back. Oh, sweet mercy, his back. There was no flesh left, just ruined muscle and fractured bone.

  “Do not…give to…me.” His eyes closed, as if his lids were too heavy to keep open. “Only him.”

  Nausea churned in her stomach. She was (somewhat) used to blood considering what she’d dealt with these past twenty-four hours, and she was totally used to violence. But this…so much in such a short amount of time…just like the past…rising up to consume her…

  For a moment, she was petrified in place, memories flooding her, drowning her, devastating her. Somehow she found a life raft—save Zacharel—and tugged, tugged, tugged herself to the surface.

  Make him drink, Koldo had said. Shaking, she swiped up the vial and returned to Zacharel’s side. The stopper proved to be a problem, and she struggled to remove it, feeling like an idiot as she yanked and failed, yanked and failed.

  “Is this the same stuff he gave me?” The same stuff that had hurt her before saving her?

  “Yes,” Koldo said.

  Finally, Annabelle’s biceps came through and the cork popped free. As unsteady as she was, she spilled several droplets down the side of her hand.

  “I’m sorry, Zacharel,” she whispered. Because she had no idea how much a big man like him would need, especially since he was an immortal rather than a human—would too much cause an overdose and hurt him, or would too little work too slowly?—she poured half the bottle down his throat.

  A moment passed, then another, and nothing happened.

  Well, what did you expect? He—

  Snarled, his body bowing. He slammed his fists against the headboard, cracking the wood. Next he punched the mattress with so much force, Annabelle was bounced to the floor, more of the liquid spilling from the bottle she still held.

  She scrambled to her feet, expecting to see his wounds mending, but…he continued to thrash, to bleed, to snarl.

  White-hot fury flowed through her veins, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. No wonder Koldo had told her not to give him any of the liquid. It was poison! And how stupid was she to have trusted him? Well, she would—

  As quickly as Zacharel had erupted, he calmed. His body sagged against the bed, and he released a soft sigh. Before her eyes, bones popped back into place. Skin wove back together, until he bore not a single bruise or scratch. Her widening gaze fell to the bottle. What was this stuff?

  “The Water of Life.” Zacharel jerked upright, scanning his surroundings, seeming to take everything in all at once. “Where is it?”

  “You’re healed.” The words burst from her, riding the tides of her shock.

  Emerald eyes landed on her, as clear as the liquid—the Water of Life?—and utterly pain free. Once again he possessed a face chiseled from dreams and honed by fantasies, lovely in a way no mortal could ever hope to be.

  Her breath caught, and her blood heated with something other than fury. She wanted to shout with joy and throw herself in his arms. She wanted to dance and sing about the wonder of this mighty miracle. She wanted…more than she was willing to admit.

  “You survived,” he
said.

  All emotion had been wiped from his voice, offering no hint of how he felt. “I did. Because of you, so thank you. Which, I know, isn’t an adequate payment. You took the brunt of the impact yourself, and all I can give you is words. I’m sorry.” She was babbling, she knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. “If I had more, I’d give you more.”

  “I would like to say it was a pleasure. Yes, I would like to say that, but impact hurt.”

  She choked back a laugh. “Did you just make a joke?”

  “A joke, when I spoke only the truth?” He waved his fingers at her. “The Water of Life,” he repeated. “Give it to me.”

  “Oh. Here.” She held out the bottle.

  Slowly, carefully he removed the bottle from her kung fu grip. “Who gave this to you?”

  “Koldo.”

  In his eyes she saw a flare of shock even the stoic Zacharel couldn’t hide.

  Uh-oh. Had the other warrior broken some kind of rule? “But I take full responsibility,” she added. “I asked him to do it. Therefore, any penalty should be mine.” Koldo had more than come through for her and for Zacharel. She owed him and according to her new motto, she had to pay him back.

  “Where is he?”

  As much as she liked Zacharel, as much as she owed him, too, she didn’t know him, not really, and wouldn’t throw the other guy straight into the fire. “What do you plan to do to him?”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I would not harm a man who has aided me, if that is what you are hinting at.”

  Very well. She pointed to the warrior still unconscious on the floor. “I didn’t harm him, either. He left and came back like that.”

  Zacharel stood, his robe falling to his feet. He replaced the bottle’s stopper; a moment later, the entire thing vanished.

  “How did you do that?” she couldn’t help but ask. What had he done?

  “I hid the vial in a tiny pocket of air I will now force to follow me.” He bypassed her, careful not to touch her, as if she were suddenly toxic.

  Message received. He wanted nothing more to do with her. And my feelings are not hurt. What was one more rejection, anyway? She was a freak, a murderer, a crazy girl who saw monsters, or so a thousand people had told her. So what that she’d just spent an entire day worrying over this man’s health. A man who knew the truth about her. A man who’d previously protected her. Why the sudden change?

  A hiss of breath as he crouched beside the injured male, glided his palm over that newly shorn scalp. “How could you let them take your hair, warrior? Why?”

  Annabelle could guess the answer to the second question, but she’d given Koldo her promise never to discuss the details of their deal. So, she remained silent. What she wanted to know was why Zacharel was more upset by his friend’s newfound baldness than he was by the condition of the guy’s back.

  Because both men were warriors to their cores? Because physical pain mattered little to them, since they’d endured so much already? Because losing something they prized, as Koldo must have prized his beaded locks, was far worse than any wound?

  And yes, she knew he’d prized those locks. The intricacy of the beadwork revealed the time and attention he’d given to every strand.

  “I have only known him three months, but the first thing I learned about him was his love for his hair. In all his centuries, he had never cut it,” Zacharel said, sadness coating the edges of his tone. “Not even a trim. I do not know why, but from what the Deity told me about him, I suspect it has something to do with his father.”

  So many questions skittered through her mind. “His father? So angels are born?”

  “Some of the Deity’s angels were…are born, yes, but some were created fully formed and given to him by the Most High.”

  “Which were you?”

  “Born.” He tenderly lifted Koldo into his arms. Every step careful, measured, he carried the massive beast to the bed and laid him facedown. “His hair will never grow back, you know.”

  “But why?”

  “A sacrifice was made and accepted. If his hair could grow back, his sacrifice would have meant nothing.”

  And I asked him to do this. Guilt settled heavily on her shoulders, nearly drilling her to her knees. “You’re sure?”

  “Not entirely, no, but I know the Council. That is how they operate.”

  Well, then. “I’ll take that to mean there’s a chance his hair will grow back. Now, he told me not to give him any of the…water,” she said, “but surely it would help him. Ease his pain.”

  “Drinking now would destroy him in the worst possible way, for we are not allowed to heal ourselves with the Water of Life when the wounds we received were to obtain that water. Other angels are even forbidden to aid in any way during the healing process.”

  Poor Koldo. “He’s an angel?”

  “Yes. He lost his wings long ago.”

  “And now he’s lost his hair.” Tears welled in her eyes. No wonder Zacharel had no desire to touch her. She was a menace, ruining the lives of all around her. Always had been.

  Sighing, Zacharel trailed his fingers over that bleeding scalp. Koldo’s head hadn’t been shaved, she realized upon closer inspection, but ripped clean. “He will hate you if you pity him,” he said. A warning for both of them?

  Koldo had said something similar about Zacharel. If the two weren’t careful, pride would cause them to miss out on the best kind of coddling. “No, he won’t, because he’ll never know. If you can get us out of here, I mean. I can’t stay. I’ve been here so long already, and the demons…” Koldo wasn’t in any condition to fight them now.

  “Will eventually find you, and it would be best if they did not find Koldo’s secret hideout,” he finished for her.

  “Exactly.”

  “No matter how strong your draw is for the demons, they should not have found you in my cloud. Should not have come for you.”

  “What exactly draws them?” At the institution, he’d mentioned hatred, lying and the urge to commit violence, but she’d done her best to focus only on good things.

  “What I told you before is still true,” he said, as though reading her mind, “but you are a special case. Your body carries the essentia of the demon who marked you, and that essentia radiates from you.”

  She blinked in surprise. Such a simple answer, yet totally life changing. There was nothing she could do to stop radiating an essence she couldn’t even feel. “How did he mark me?”

  Zacharel stalked to the dresser and dug through the drawers, finally pulling out a robe.

  Urgency bombarded her, and she barely stopped herself from gripping his shoulders and shaking him. “Tell me! He kissed me and he licked me, but I had to have come into contact with him before that because the change in my eyes happened before that, and as you once so sweetly told me, my eyes belong to a demon.”

  He said nothing.

  She continued. “The morning of his attack, my eyes felt as if they’d been scrubbed raw and bleached. And after that, my parents… That first demon…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t understand why he came. It was my birthday, and I’d just had the most amazing dream. It should have been a perfect day.”

  Zacharel stiffened. “Dream?”

  “Yes.”

  “You remember it?”

  “Of course. I’ve relived it a thousand times.” She’d hoped to figure out what was wrong with it. At first, she’d loved it. But the more the scene had played through her mind, the more she’d realized something had been…off.

  “Tell me.”

  “A smoking-hot Prince Charming saved me from fire-breathing dragons and asked me if I was willing to help him. I said yes. He said I love you and want to be with you and I said how sweet, and he said will you be my woman, and I said yes, and he said then we are one. Then I woke up in the most agonizing pain.”

  Zacharel ran his tongue over his teeth. “The prince was the demon, and he tricked you into agreeing to his claiming.”

 
“Uh, no. It was just a dream.” A dream that had stuck with her for years…

  “No, you only thought it was a dream. He manipulated your mind, vulnerable as it was in sleep. When he asked you to be his woman, and you agreed, you became his slave.”

  “But that’s… I didn’t mean…would never… They can do that to people?” she squeaked.

  “If a human allows it, yes.”

  “But…how could I have known what was happening?”

  “You could have, if you had been trained to distinguish the truth from the lie.” When he stood in front of her, he tugged the robe over her head. “To keep you clean and warm.”

  The material bagged on her, draping her arms and pooling at her feet.

  “Do you wish to remove the leather?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Since the robe shielded her body, she was able to contort this way and that to extract herself from the dirty, chafing clothing.

  When she finished, she realized her skin was tingling and her cells fizzing, as though hundreds of butterflies were giving her a sponge bath. It was the strangest feeling, and she wasn’t sure if the robe or Zacharel’s nearness was responsible.

  He lifted her hair from the collar, his fingertips brushing her nape, making her shiver. His nearness. Definitely his nearness.

  He didn’t jerk away, as she expected, but lingered, saying, “Soft.”

  Well, what do you know, she thought. He wasn’t as opposed to touching her, after all. “Why did you avoid coming into contact with me before?” she asked, veering away from the subject of demons. Right now, her mind needed a break. “And don’t try to say it wasn’t deliberate. You basically contorted your body to maintain distance, a move I invented to establish boundaries with other patients.”

  “I lose track of everything important when you’re near me,” he grumbled.

  Everything important, he’d said. Meaning, she was not. Nice. “Such a romantic,” she muttered, slapping his hand away. “You’re lucky I’m not one of those girls who burst into tears at every little insult.”

  “That was not an insult.” He frowned, and while she knew he hadn’t meant for his expression to pulse with sensuality, his lack of chill caused just that, an erotic throb inside her, where want blended with need. “And I am not trying to romance you.”