“Every hero has his issues.” Bethany laughed when he turned in her direction.
Emmanuel caught his eye. “I think BD just wants you to ask what his superpower used to be.”
Bethany and BD spoke in unison. “Still is.”
Lovely. The ex–sex Loa still had only one thing on his mind. “Can we focus on me for a few more minutes? What about Angelique?”
“You don’t have to worry about Angelique.” Bethany sounded certain.
“He doesn’t?”
“I don’t?”
She pushed the vampire book in his direction. “You’d have to understand women to know what I’m talking about, and you obviously still have some things to learn. Just read this. Maybe it will give you some ideas about your abilities. Emmanuel, I know you don’t want to show yourself, but can I speak with you alone?”
Emmanuel jerked in his seat, then got up to stand beside her. “Of course. I need to speak to you as well.”
Before she could disappear, Gabriel reached out to stop her. “Please, Bethany. I don’t want to hurt her.”
Her expression softened to one of compassion. “Then don’t. But I don’t think you’re taking anything from her that she isn’t willing to part with. If I did, I’d have Celestin come over and tackle you. You know that.”
He did. “Then . . . ?”
She shook her head. “It’s not my place to tell you. Just trust me. And trust yourself. If you don’t want to hurt her, you won’t.”
Emmanuel and Bethany left the room and Gabriel looked down at the book, but he didn’t see the writing. He let the relief wash over him. He hadn’t hurt her.
He had hurt her by being stupid and cruel, but that could be fixed. If he wanted it to be. He thought about how he’d felt waking up with her lying next to him. God, he wanted it to be.
“I’ve got an idea.”
Gabriel glanced at BD suspiciously. “Why do I have the feeling I should be nervous?”
BD held out his arms and shrugged carelessly, but there was something in his eyes that belied his body language. An intensity that made Gabriel focus. “Don’t listen, if you like, mon ami. But I think you came to me for a reason. And you were right, of course, because I think I am uniquely qualified to help.”
“This I have to hear.” Gabriel leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms.
“Simple.” BD was blunt. “You don’t care what I think. I’m a scoundrel with a second chance. An angel fallen from grace. A—”
Gabriel felt his head pounding again. “I get your point.”
But he wasn’t finished. “I’m not your childhood pal who married your sister, or your watchdog.” He gestured in the direction of Emmanuel. “Or your lover’s older brother, who is, as we all know, a saint among men.”
Gabriel felt his lips curving. It was impossible not to like this guy. “You said you could help?”
BD stood up, pushing his chair back. “I need to see what you do firsthand. We have to get you to a bar. Preferably a place with rowdy patrons and overly loud music.”
“That makes perfect sense.” Maybe he should read the vampire book.
BD leaned forward, his expression saying he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Now that you know what it is you’re looking at, you have power. Power you could be more prone to use incorrectly if you don’t understand it. If we don’t understand it. Think of it as practice.”
It did make a twisted kind of sense. If he ever wanted to be out in the world again, to stop hiding, he’d have to learn how to control this—whatever it was.
“I’m in.”
The man’s smile was blinding, if tightly controlled. “Just what I wanted to hear. Wait here while I tell my wife where we’re going.”
Gabriel’s loud laughter followed his friend down the hall. “How far the mighty angel has fallen.”
BD’s answer came back without hesitation. “Ah, but it is worth it.”
CHAPTER 11
“MAYBE THIS WAS A MISTAKE.”
“All the best adventures start with that sentence, my friend.” BD sent the bartender a smile of thanks and lifted the water he’d ordered to his lips.
Gabriel couldn’t get over it. Here he was beside one of the most infamous—previously immortal—rogues of the last century, watching him ignore all the women sidling closer to him, more interested in the band than his new fan club.
“Water, BD? I have to admit, you are shattering your image. With that Saints cap on, you look more like a soccer dad than the infamous Bone Daddy.”
BD grinned, his striking, amber eyes alight. “Truly? Thank you, Gabriel. You are a good friend.”
Gabriel hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but it was obvious that was how it was taken. There was no other explanation. Love apparently made men crazy. How else could he explain it? A Loa with power over men and women alike, a being that could live forever, happily domesticated. And Ben Adair, a man who had been relatively sane and successful, now thoroughly tamed by Gabriel’s sister. He didn’t know Celestin Rousseau as well, but it was clear that the tattooed, dreadlocked, previously possessed rebel had also fallen victim to the cult of happy wedlock.
He’d been at several of his father’s weddings. That was a man in love with love. But even as the bride of the moment walked up the aisle, his father had never seemed as content, as whole, as these men did to Gabriel.
He wondered if he had it in him to feel something that strongly, and an image of Angelique and her dimpled, saucy smile immediately filled his mind.
But could it last?
A nervous female voice shook him out of his reverie. “Can I please buy you a drink?”
He turned on his barstool to see a woman who could easily have graced an issue of Playboy staring hopefully at the man beside him. She was focused. And clearly willing. Gabriel may as well have been invisible, but he didn’t mind. He sipped his beer, waiting curiously for BD’s reaction.
The former kinky cupid set down his glass and stood. “You are too kind, cher.” He took her hand and kissed it with an old-world air that had Gabriel’s eyebrows rising to his hairline.
“You are also beautiful and desirable, and I can see you find me pleasing. Regretfully, I must refuse, since I am joyfully reveling in connubial bliss. However, I have no doubt that you will find the perfect man who will wish to bring you as much ecstasy as I could. Perhaps more. Nothing is impossible.”
Gabriel smiled sympathetically at the statuesque stunner’s confused expression. “He means he’s married. And trust me, I’ve met his wife; you should probably move on.”
She walked away, her shoulders slumped as if someone had kicked her favorite puppy. Several other women who’d heard the exchange followed morosely behind her.
He watched BD sit back down and shook his head. “No wonder Bethany doesn’t let you out much. Does this happen everywhere you go?”
“Most of the time.” BD shrugged one shoulder, unconcerned. “Bethany teases me about it now. Especially since a local cable channel offered me an insane amount of money to host a show teaching men how to attract the opposite sex.”
Somehow Gabriel wasn’t surprised. BD on television would be a ratings bonanza. Men would watch to be like him, women would watch, just as they were doing now in the bar, because it was him.
He’d never thought about what a Loa did when he was no longer a Loa. BD and Bethany had a nice home, and it was obvious they weren’t suffering. It was just as obvious that BD was far more interested in doing laundry and chasing his wife around the house than becoming a part of the working class.
Did Loas have retirement funds?
“I take it you turned them down?” he asked.
BD nodded. “There is no honest way to teach sexual attraction. In the end it’s there or it’s not. If a man cannot make his woman want him, isn’t willing to do anything to discover her wildest fantasies and spend a lifetime making them come true, then he doesn’t deserve her.”
His words resonated with Gabriel.
He wanted to discover Angelique’s wildest fantasies. He admitted to himself that he was in over his head with her. Despite his growing belief that she probably never wanted to speak to him again, he wanted her too badly to be casual.
“She would forgive you.”
Gabriel jerked in surprise, glancing warily at BD as he took another sip of beer. He pushed it away, the flat taste no longer soothing. “Do you read minds, too?”
BD chortled. “Don’t have to. You and I are a lot alike. Two nearly irredeemable bastards who fell for women far too good for us. If Bethany can forgive me for a hundred-plus years of decadence and mischief, Angelique could forgive you for being an asshole.”
He hadn’t fallen for her. He was just obsessed with her. “It’s better this way. For everyone.”
BD stared at him intently for a few moments and then nodded, the smile returning to his expression, though wariness remained in his gaze. “Perhaps. It depends on you and which path you decide to walk. Speaking of you, don’t you think it’s time we did the first experiment? I need to see this for myself. See if it stirs any memories from my . . . previous life.”
Shit. His heart began to pound in his ears. All the memories of what he’d been through this last year, running from shadows, blacking out, losing himself—came rushing back.
But it wasn’t evil. Not in any coherent sense. At least, if Bethany and her unusual theory were correct.
BD gestured toward the gyrating crowd tonight’s popular blues band’s performance had drawn. “How does this usually happen?”
“I get drunk and start seeing bogeymen.”
“Funny.” BD’s smile was sardonic. “Concentrate. Voodoo’s root means spirit, you know. Something Mambo Toussaint could have told you if you’d talked to her about it. There are beings of nature and ancestors, and infusing it all is spirit. It’s there, and you have the ability to see it. The way I could. Better than I could if the Marassa Twins had a hand in it. Though why they would dole out that kind of power is beyond me.”
Gabriel frowned, thinking about something Emmanuel had said. “Beings of nature? Manny said there were others. Not Loa. He was right?”
“Of course. Though if your next question is if that’s what he is, I don’t think so. I’m not sure what he is, or why the Mysteries decided to send him back.”
BD sounded concerned. For whom? Bethany? Emmanuel?
“You aren’t sure of much for an ex-Loa, are you?” He grimaced and shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s just—do you doubt they would? What if it’s not from them? What if it’s something else?” A curse.
Strange movement in a corner booth distracted Gabriel. A woman was glaring at a couple on the dance floor in unmistakable jealousy. Around her was a swirling darkness, not fully formed . . . just waiting.
“I see something.”
BD leaned closer. “Remember what Emmanuel said. Focus. Study it. Watch how it moves. When it senses you, don’t turn away.”
Gabriel watched. It didn’t take long for him to get that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The spinning form stilled, darkened, looking for something. Him.
He watched a part of it separate from the angry woman and slink under the table, between the legs of the dancing throng until it was close to him. Closing in.
Gabriel tensed. “It’s coming. What if I black out or hurt someone?”
“I won’t let you. You won’t let you. You’re not lost in self-pity now. Not drunk. Just observe it. If you know how it works, you can control it.”
He tried to open his mind. To see energy instead of the priest’s depictions of slithering serpents. It was feelings. Emotion. Not as sharp or focused because it was hurt mixed with jealousy instead of the rage or hatred he’d witnessed the other night.
It hovered just out of reach, not coming closer. He told BD his observations, never taking his eyes from it.
“I wonder. The other energy didn’t hesitate, did it?” BD asked. “It came for you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?” BD lowered his voice. “Because you were being attacked? Because you felt it, too? You were angry with the men trying to harm you. Do you suppose like draws like? That you can see it, but draw it only when you allow yourself to feel the feeling that created it?” BD sounded enthralled.
Great. Gabriel was glad someone was enjoying this twisted trip into loony land.
“Gabriel.” BD’s voice had taken a new, cautious note. “I think we should stop now.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know she was here.”
She? Gabriel tore his attention from the weaving shadow and scanned the crowd. He saw her in the middle of the dance floor.
Her body swayed to a sultry rhythm, arms raised above her head as she lifted her golden-brown curls off her neck. The dress she wore was snug against her thighs. Her breasts strained against the stretching fabric.
Two men framed her, watching the way her body moved, moving with her. She smiled seductively at the one on her right, turning her body until her back was pressed against his front, her ass rubbing against his—
“Angelique.”
A burst of energy exploded against his chest. So powerful it knocked the breath out of him. When he looked back at where the shadow had been, it was gone.
But not far.
He could feel the darkness now, fueled by his own jealousy at the sight of Angelique on the dance floor. Muddling his thoughts. Making him think of all the ways he would kill the man who was touching his woman. Who thought he could take her from him.
“Get ahold of yourself.” BD was standing in front of him, forcing him to focus. “You said it was jealousy. So we were right. Like draws like. That makes this easier. Understand it, relate to it, but don’t let it take over.”
It was a difficult command. Nearly impossible. “I have to talk to her.” Have to get her away from those soon-to-be-dead men trying to dry hump her.
BD hesitated, restraining him with strong hands on his shoulders. “Blue Eyes will probably geld me for going along with you, but I will. Angelique is hurt and probably not thinking straight. You are definitely not. But sometimes that’s when we need each other the most. And I need—we all need answers.”
He stepped back and Gabriel launched to his feet, his hands clenched into tight fists as he sought to restrain himself. He studied the man dancing to the left of Angelique, looking down her dress, and imagined punching him in his leering eye.
The stranger’s head whipped back and he grunted in pain, reaching for his eye. Gabriel blinked in surprise even as brutal satisfaction filled him. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it.
No one else had seen the shadow that had done what Gabriel was too far away to do, but BD noticed the result and winced.
“Superpower, indeed. Not exactly restraint, but better than the alternative.” He kept his voice calm as he followed Gabriel through the crowd. “If you’re listening to my advice, I’d say no to violence, and yes to showing the girl how much you want her. Don’t lose control.”
Control. He had to keep control. He wasn’t weak. He would never allow himself to be overtaken by something again. But that didn’t stop him from making a beeline toward Angelique. From being pissed.
He’d been concerned for her all day. Wanting her. Hating himself for causing her pain. Yet here she was, dressed in a come-and-get-me dress and picking his replacement.
That was not going to happen. If she was hungry for more, Gabriel would be more than happy to oblige.
“ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO THE hotel, hon? We can order room service. Anything you want.”
Angelique ignored Kelly’s offer and stood by her seat, her body swaying to the music. She knew her friends were worried about her, but they were bringing her down.
“I’m going to get another drink.” She turned, taking only a few steps into the crowd when she bumped into someone. “Excuse me.”
“Thought you might like tha
t drink now.”
It was that man. The same creepy drunk from the bar the other night. What was he doing here? “Are you following me?”
He towered over her, his smile still cruel. “I told you, didn’t I? Warned you? But we can still fix it... if you agree to walk away from the Dark Messenger like a good girl.”
A good girl. In all his insane babbling that was what she heard. That was what everyone thought she was.
You’re not. You aren’t good. How can you be? You’re a Rousseau.
She poked the man in the chest, heedless of his size. “Look, buddy, I don’t want a drink from you, I don’t want to dance, and I do not need one more person telling me what to do. I know you’re a little crazy with the rum, but do you get that?”
He stepped back, his smile disappearing. “Your choice.”
She pushed past him and made her way to the end of the bar, gesturing to the bartender. She was still irritated when she arrived back at her table, her hands full of margarita. “You would not believe what just happened to me. Here, take one of these.”
She tried to hand a chilly glass to Kelly, but she refused. “I’m fine with my water, hon.”
Angelique sighed. “Wasn’t it just a few days ago that you two got me drunk, paid for a lap dance, and had me nearly breaking and entering the house of a family friend with no thought to the consequences? Were you changed into sticks-in-the-mud overnight?”
She set down the drinks and took a breath. That was rude. She probably shouldn’t have worded it like that.
They’re jealous of you. They want all the attention for themselves.
They were a little high maintenance on occasion, true. But she’d never seen better friends, and they always put her first. God, she had a headache. “Come on, I thought we came here to have fun. Look—margaritas!”
She and Kelly and Ive had gotten to the hotel, made one another up, and headed out in search of a good time. The music had called to her. So much so, she hadn’t been able to sit down once since she got here. But, other than her run-in with Mr. Weirdo, she had been enjoying herself. Enjoying her drinks. More than usual.
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