Wicked Nights aotd-1

by Gena Showalter

  For a moment, Zacharel was transported back to the night he’d done this to his brother. Just as before, he held tight, and when he pulled his hand free, something thick and clear coated his skin. Something…what was left of his brother. Will not react.

  Before a single drop could absorb into his body, he commanded the cloud to produce an urn. He scraped the rim from fingertip to elbow, until every bead had fallen into the container. After sealing the lid, he shoved the urn into a hidden pocket of air. Angels and demons alike would be drawn to it, but he would never again make anyone else responsible for its safeguarding.

  Zacharel turned his attention to Annabelle. He cleaned her up, bandaged her wounds and dressed her in a warm, fur-lined robe. All the while, emotions threatened to overwhelm him. More of the shame, more of the fury, helplessness and hopelessness. He couldn’t imagine what had been done to her, to turn her into this. Even when a demon possessed a human’s body, the appearance of that human was never altered.

  Annabelle was a demon’s consort—in theory, not in truth, he thought as a wave of possessive heat moved through him—but she would have transformed four years ago, at the moment of her marking, if the act was destined to change her. So…what did that leave? Not that he minded her appearance. She had been beautiful before, but she was equally beautiful now. She was simply his Annabelle. But she would be bothered, and he could not bear that.

  Zacharel eased beside her and traced his thumb along her scaled cheekbone. A soft sigh left her as she leaned into his touch. She might do the opposite when she awoke, and turn away from him. She would remember what he’d done to her, how he’d hurt her. She would probably run from him.

  He swallowed back a roar of denial. If she wanted to run from him, he would have to let her. He could never atone for what he’d done to her. Never. But he could follow and protect her for the rest of his days. If that meant giving up his place in the heavens, so be it.

  She would have to be an important part of his life, Haidee had said.

  She was. Far more important than his job, his home.

  Unable to stop himself, he touched her now, while he could, and the more he stroked her, the more—sweet Deity, the faster her wound began to heal and her scales began to diminish, until only bronzed skin remained. The wings withered, finally disappearing from view.

  His human Annabelle was back. How, why, he didn’t know, but he offered up a prayer of thanks, anyway, something he hadn’t done in centuries.

  A rustle of clothing sounded behind him, and he spun, drawing his sword.

  Lucien, the Lord of the Underworld possessed by Death, held up his hands, palms out. Black hair shagged over his forehead, and his lips curved down, a thick, jagged scar bisecting one corner. “Whoa there, angel. I come bearing news.” Fatigue dripped from each of the words.

  Zacharel released the sword, barely registering when it vanished. Urgency battered him. “Tell me.”

  “Amun finished digging through Burden’s secrets. The high lord you’re looking for, the one who claimed Annabelle, is named Unforgiveness.”

  Unforgiveness. The name echoed through his mind. Finally, an answer and yet, relief was not forthcoming. “I have never fought him.” Had heard of him, yes. Who hadn’t? The baddest of the bad, the worst of the worst. Zacharel had hunted him the few times he’d heard the demon had been summoned by a human, but always Unforgiveness managed to hide before his arrival.

  “Thank you,” he said to Lucien, already relaying the information to Thane.

  We managed to capture three more minions, Thane said inside his mind. We’ll find out what they know about this Unforgiveness.

  Lucien inclined his head in acknowledgment. “You’re welcome. And now I hope we’re even and never have to work together again.” With that, the warrior disappeared.

  Zacharel bundled Annabelle in the blanket from the bed and lifted her into his arms. More than not wanting to draw the demons to Bianka’s cloud, he did not want Annabelle waking up and lashing out at anyone but him.

  Oh, Annabelle. Will you ever be able to forgive me, when I’m not sure I can forgive myself?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ANNABELLE AWOKE WITH A JOLT, jerking upright. She was panting, sweat running down her chest and back in rivulets. The most terrible dream had plagued her. She had become a demon, had raced through a forest and had fought Zacharel.

  Zacharel.

  With his name came a burst of dread she couldn’t explain, but knew she was supposed to tamp down. Dangerous, she thought.

  What was? The emotion? Or Zacharel?

  Her gaze darted around. She was in another hotel room, alone. I should run. I have to run. She didn’t question the thought, just threw her legs over the side of the bed. Before she could unfold to a stand, Zacharel appeared in front of her, his expression unreadable.

  The dread spiked.

  Stay calm. You have to stay calm. Confused, unsure, she froze. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  With a pained moan he dropped to his knees, and suddenly she could read his expression. Agonized, ashamed, regretful, horrified… Just then he was a broken man, the pieces scattered in too many directions to ever find and glue back together.

  “I…I… Zacharel?”

  “I’m sorry, Annabelle. So sorry.”

  In the next instant, the truth hit her with the force of a baseball bat. What she remembered wasn’t a dream. She had turned into a demon. She had raced through the forest. She had fought Zacharel.

  Eyes wide, she held out her arms, but a robe blocked her view of herself. She only dared to breathe again when she rolled back the sleeves and saw the light brown of her skin.

  Winding her arms around her back proved more difficult, but she had to know, had to—no wings! Thank the Lord! Her back was smooth where it should be smooth and ridged where it should be ridged.

  Zacharel watched her without uttering a word. Still on his knees, humbled before her.

  Her arms fell heavily to her sides. “You hit me,” she stated flatly. Gone was the dread, but in its place was a bone-deep disappointment.

  His head bowed, his chin hitting his sternum. “I know.”

  “And you didn’t know who I was.”

  “No. I did not.”

  He wasn’t even trying to defend himself. He could have told her that type of change in a human was unheard of, something he’d thought impossible. He could have reminded her of her reaction to him, when he had morphed into a demon.

  “Why did I transform? How did you turn me back to normal?”

  Not once did he glance up. “Tell me what happened in the cloud first. Then I will tell you everything I know, or even suspect. I will hide no detail from you.”

  “Very well.”

  He listened as she spoke, and every so often, he nodded. By the end, his shoulders were slumped as if a heavy weight rested atop them.

  “Clouds can do many things,” Zacharel said, “but they cannot change a human into a demon. The demon lied about that part. Nor would a minion have had the power to do such a thing.”

  “But then how could I have changed if it wasn’t the cloud or the demon?” Dread shot through her, soon chilling every part of her. “Does that mean I’m no longer a human, and my outside was just catching up with my insides?”

  “Possibly. I think, when you were marked, more was done to you than either of us realized. I think the demon replaced a piece of your spirit.”

  No, surely not. She would have known. Right? “How is that possible?”

  “He would have reached inside your body with a spiritual hand, and, like a blade can remove a limb, taken what he wanted. Probably just a small portion, no bigger than a dime. He would then have replaced that piece with one of his own, exchanging the two, bonding you far more than a married couple…melding you.”

  White-hot fury exploded through her, completely overshadowing the dread, and she found herself beating at Zacharel’s shoulders. “For the last time, I’m not married to the demon
who murdered my parents! I’m not! And I’m not melded, either!”

  He never lifted a hand in defense. “If that was indeed done to you, your life is linked to his. As long as he lives, you live. As long as you live, he lives. I had not considered that possibility before, but it is clear to me now.”

  Questions rained through her mind, her actions slowing…stopping. “But…but… Why send other demons after me? If I died, he would have died.”

  “Remember when Thane mentioned something blocked him and others from taking you physically? I believe that same something prevented them from rendering a killing blow, as well.”

  “But I…I just can’t be melded to him.” And of course, the burn in her chest fired up as it always did when her…negative emotions…got the better of her.

  That’s right! The burn had played a part in the change, and her emotions had played a part in the burn.

  She told Zacharel, and he nodded, saying, “That makes sense. The only question now is why the demon did it. Without your knowing consent, and the dream would not have provided that consent, he violated one of the highest heavenly laws. Free will.”

  Her heart skipped a tortured beat. Something in his tone… “And you’re an enforcer of those laws, right?” That’s what he’d told her during their first meeting, she was sure. And that could only mean…

  “No,” she thought she screamed, but the word emerged as a whisper. “No.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “So you will be the one to carry out his sentence?”

  A nod this time, rather than a verbal response.

  Another heartbeat was missed because she suspected the answer. “And that sentence is?”

  There was a long, tense pause. He looked up, he looked down, then left and right, as if he wanted to be anywhere else. Finally, she heard, “Death.”

  Every fiber of her being rebelled at the thought of her own. By upholding the law, Zacharel would be killing the demon, yes—but he would also be killing Annabelle. “How would this…merging—” she gagged “—cause me to change into a demon four years after the fact?”

  “I’ve seen the way the Lords of the Underworld come to physically resemble their demons when their own negative emotions overtake them. It’s just as you described. They lose control of their humanity, all reasoning abolished. The demon inside the cloud knew what had happened to you all those years ago, so he knew how to elicit the response he wanted.”

  “I agree, I do. I mean, the emotion thing was my idea. But I don’t understand how four horror-filled years could have passed without a single change, and then all of a sudden, boom.”

  “You are forgetting that you were drugged for all of those four years, and those drugs were meant to suppress the depths of your emotions. Even when you began to feel things strongly again, the drugs were likely lingering in your system and diluting the full extent of your feelings.”

  “But I’ve been over the withdrawals for a while,” she said, clinging to a hope that they were wrong.

  “You’ve also been injured or recovering. Weakened.”

  Yes, there was that. “But what about the Water of Life?”

  “It healed the human part of you, but aggravated the demon part, and it, too, would have slowed your transformation.”

  And she’d certainly been aggravated the two times he’d fed her the stuff, hadn’t she.

  Hope withered. Her chin quivered, and her eyes welled with tears she refused to shed. She was part demon. The truth whispered through her. She was part demon. It was a scream of outrage and helplessness this time.

  Calm, you have to calm. “Will I change again?” she croaked, though she already knew the answer. Could already feel the burn sprouting in her chest.

  “With extreme negative emotion…yes, I think you will.”

  “Can the demon piece be removed from me? Replaced with something else?” Another spark of hope formed…

  “No. Too much time has passed.”

  …and was destroyed.

  I won’t cry. I won’t.

  “The demon you carried through the forest, he had absorbed my brother’s essentia. There was a piece of me in there, too. But I did not die when the demon died because nothing had taken root. And I was able to remove everything from the body without any resistance because that essentia recognized me. What’s in you has taken root and would resist. It would not recognize me, nor want any part of me.”

  She heard his unspoken words. If he tried to free her, she would suffer and probably die anyway. “I don’t care about the pain or even dying. Get the demon out of me.” Now!

  “You might not care about dying, but I do,” he said simply. “I will not do that to you. Ever. Do not ask it of me.”

  Only took a moment to understand his vehemence. He still suffered over doing the same to his brother, and could withstand no more. So no, she couldn’t, wouldn’t ask it of him. “Wh-what should I do, then?”

  “I will find the high lord. I will lock him away.” Zacharel rested his head in her lap, his arms wrapping around her waist. His body began to shake. “I am sorry for this, Annabelle. So very sorry.”

  She felt something wet and warm saturate the fabric of her robe, and frowned. Tears? No. No, this strong, proud warrior could not be crying. “You would lock him away rather than kill him, despite your law and your orders?”

  “For you, I will do anything.” He looked up at her, lashes spiky and eyes glassed. He was crying. “And I give you my vow, here and now, Annabelle, that I will not kill you. I will not allow another angel to kill you.”

  And he would probably be killed for his own crimes in the process. “Don’t do that.”

  He rushed on. “Somehow, someway, I will find the demon who did this to you. I will lock him away.” His grip tightened on her. “I will do everything in my power to safeguard you always. And if you cannot bear to look upon me, I will do so in secret.”

  “No, I—”

  “I finally comprehend what the Deity was trying to teach me,” he said, cutting her off, “what I failed to realize all these centuries. I thought I had learned, but still I would have done what I felt needed doing.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Collateral damage. The people I have killed and allowed to be killed were demon possessed or cavorting with demons, and I thought their murders justified. But what if they were like you? Innocent? What if it was not just them I hurt in the end, but the people who loved them and still had hope for their salvation? What if there was hope for their salvation? Actually, there is always hope. I know that now.”

  His hold on her tightened as his tears fell in earnest. “I am sorry, Anna. Not because you know my sin but because it caused you so much pain.”

  Seeing him so torn up soothed her in a way nothing else could have. He cared about her. He felt remorse. Glory, he felt.

  Sighing, she sifted her fingers through the silk of his hair. The fact that he had as much reason to hate demons as she did, yet he wasn’t rejecting her now that he knew she was…she was… She couldn’t think the words again. The truth would have to be dealt with, but that would come later. For now, she just wanted to bask in this moment and in the man who loved her.

  And he did. He loved her. He might not realize it, having denied his emotions for so long, but she was certain of it—just as she was certain that she loved him, too. He had saved and protected her. He had seen the best in her, and was helping her do the same. He allowed no one to disrespect her, and wanted only the best for her. He would never leave her, and she would never leave him.

  Yes, he was a difficult man, a complex man, and he wasn’t used to the emotions he was now experiencing, or even softness. But he gave both to her, and she would give both right back to him.

  He was a part of her now, more so than…than… Anyway. He was a beautiful part, a welcome part, strong and courageous and fun to tease. He was tender and gentle, yet hard when she needed him to be.

  She cooed at him until he quie
ted, and though she regretted the need to do it, she finally extracted herself from his hold. He offered no protest, kept his head down, once again refusing to face her.

  “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t go anywhere.” She raced into the bathroom before he could reply.

  As swiftly as possible, she took care of business, brushed her teeth and removed her robe. She was naked underneath, and utterly scrubbed clean. So clean, in fact, she sparkled. However the angel robe worked, she was grateful.

  Now, for Zacharel. He needed her, and she needed him. They both needed to forget what had happened, what would happen, if only for a little while.

  The hinges on the door squeaked as she emerged from the bathroom. Cool air kissed her bare skin, spreading goose bumps along her arms and legs.

  Zacharel sat at the edge of the bed, his elbows propped on his knees, his head bent. His wings were spread out, a wealth of gold now without any hint of white. Or snow, she realized. Once again, he’d stopped snowing.

  “According to our bargain, I’m supposed to kiss you anytime the urge hits me, and you’re supposed to accept. Right?”

  His gaze snapped up. He’d dried his face, but he couldn’t mask the glassiness of those emerald eyes. “Annabelle,” he said on a rumbling breath, looking her over. “After everything that’s happened, you cannot mean—”

  “I do.” Slowly she walked to him. When she stood between his legs, she placed her hands on his shoulders. His muscles were knotted. His gaze moved to hers, as if he couldn’t trust himself to continue peering at the rest of her.

  “I want to be with you,” she said. She frowned as a thought hit her. “Unless you’re not allowed to be with a woman melded to a—” Her lips pressed together in a thin line. She didn’t want to think the words, and she didn’t want to say them. “It’s okay if you can’t. I’ll just—”

  In a rush of motion, Zacharel had his arms around her, and her feet kicked out from under her. She tumbled forward, and he positioned her in his lap. For balance, she had to straddle his thighs.

  “You are mine,” he rasped. “Only ever mine. I accept all that you are, and we can be together.”