by JL Weil
“You’re perfect, Chase Winters.”
A shuddered rippled through me. We could do that to each other. “What took you so long?”
“I need a learning curve when it comes to you.” She captured my lips again, and then pulled back with a slight nip.
It felt like forever since we had kissed. I moved my hand into her hair, deepening the kiss, our breaths mingling. “I love you, Angel Eyes.” I couldn’t say it enough.
She wore a doe-eyed expression. “When you say that, it makes my insides light up.”
“Mine too,” I murmured, sealing her lips in another deep, scorching kiss. “I’m going to show you how much I love you.”
Chapter 15
I couldn’t help but think her mom had named her appropriately. She looked so much like an angel that it hit me straight in the gut. My arm might have gone numb, but I didn’t think about moving. We had a closeness that went beyond the laws of physics, beyond Mother Nature, beyond the universe.
She lay curled up beside me so we were face-to-face with her arm draped over my chest. In sleep, there was a quiet beauty to her face. A soft ray of sunlight shone over her, giving her a golden glow. Like this, with her lying in my arms, there was nothing supernatural to make my heart drop.
“Chase.” She breathed my name like it was a prayer.
I cast my eyes downward until they met hers. “Did I wake you?” I asked, sweeping a strand of hair off her cheek.
Her fingers clutched at the wrinkled material of the blanket. “No. I wasn’t sleeping, but I don’t want to move. I want to stay just like this forever.”
She snuggled deeper in my arms, my numb limbs shooting with needles, but I ignored the pain. It was a minor nuisance when compared to losing her closeness. “I know the feeling.” Twisting, I tried to detangle my legs from the covers.
Once I was settled, she shifted in my arms, so our noses almost touched. “So, I guess we have to talk about the thing I’ve been avoiding for far too long.”
I kissed the point of her nose. “Only when you’re ready.”
The tip of her finger traced random hearts over my bare chest. “Since when did you become so understanding and patient?”
Our breaths mingled as we talked. “I haven’t. Trust me. It’s only with you.”
“Aw!” Then she stuck a finger in her mouth, making gagging noises and smiling.
Why she amused me, I’d never know. Propping myself up on my elbow, I steepled my hand on the side of my head. “You sure know how to ruin a moment.”
She batted her eyes innocently. “We were having a moment?”
I snorted. “I think we had plenty of moments last night.”
Her cheeks turned pinkish. “I don’t think my mind will ever catch up to all that has happened to me, or is still happening. The last year has been so surreal. So what did I do this time?”
Ready or not… “In a nutshell, you zonked out,” I told her.
Shock splashed across her face. “Again?”
I said nothing, recalling how freaky it was watching her check out. Did she want me to tell her that she got this zombie, dead-eyed look, or that a red ring appeared around her irises? In this situation, I felt too much information might be more harmful.
She bit her lip. “Silence. Oh, that’s not good,” she muttered when I didn’t answer right away. “Tell me, Chase. What’s wrong with me?” Her words strung together, laced with panic, as she sat up.
We both knew we weren’t going to like the answers. Stretching, I pushed up, resting my back against the headboard, and rubbed my neck. I’d been trying to find a way to talk about this delicately, and now that I had the opportunity, I suddenly became tongue-tied.
“You’re making me nervous. Just spit it out,” she said.
I let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know, Angel, and it’s freaking killing me.” The words felt like nails on my tongue. “My best guess is between our bonds and this keystone business, your body overtaxed. It might need time to adjust.”
“Or I’m mutating into some kind of demonic humanoid.”
I frowned. “Be serious.”
“What? You don’t think it’s possible? You’re half demon, Chase. Don’t tell me you don’t think it could happen.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe it was possible; it was that I didn’t want to believe it could be happening to her. “I don’t think we should assume the worst, that’s all.”
So what does she do? She jumped straight for the worst. “Am I going to die?”
A muscle spasm ticked along my jaw. “No one is dying on my watch.” Especially Angel. I never wanted her name attached to the word “death” ever again.
For a moment, she closed her eyes. “I knew you’d say that, but I wanted to hear you say it. I needed you to,” she said, her body relaxing.
My blood pressure had spiked. The memory of her lifeless body on the ground will be one that haunts me always. “Our bonds make us different from everyone, which could lead to a million unknowns. That is something we are going to have to deal with.”
She rested her chin on my shoulder. “Exactly how do you propose we deal with my zonking out? Lock me in my room? Handcuff me to my bed?”
A wry smile surfaced on my lips. “Did you read my mind?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, but I wish I could.”
A part of me laughed while the other part cringed. “That would be retched. You really don’t want to know what is going on between my ears. Trust me.”
“I must be crazy, because I do.” Crossing her legs into a pretzel, she picked at her fingernails, chipping away at her green nail polish. “Now what?”
The sparkle of her necklace caught my eye, the one I had bought her. She never took it off. “I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve.”
“You always have something up your sleeve, and that scares me. Do you plan on sharing?”
“Not yet.” I pressed a quick kiss on her forehead, and then snuck out of bed. I needed to get my glorious butt in gear, before I gave into this urge begging me to spend all day holed up with the tempting cupcake sitting in the middle of my bed.
She wrinkled her nose. “Fine. Take your grubby face and your secrets.”
“Grubby, huh?” I jumped back onto the bed, my hand snaking around her waist before she had a chance to scramble away. Then I gave her a taste of her own medicine, rubbing the side of my face along her cheek, tickling her with my prickly stubble.
She squirmed and squealed beside me. “It’s bad. You might want to think about a shower.”
My brow arched in a leisurely gesture. “Oh yeah, is that an invitation?”
She watched me intently, her lips pressed in a serious line. “Are you going to tell me what your so called plan is?”
“No.”
“Then no. It’s not, duh.”
A shower was sounding more and more enticing.
~*~*~*~
There was only one person I could think of that might be able to help, but I had yet to know if he was trustworthy. Just because he was half demon didn’t mean we all shared the same code of honor. Look at me. But there was only one way to find out.
As farfetched as this idea might be, I didn’t see any other choices. We needed an expert, and this was my only plan. It damn well better pay off.
My knuckles rapped on the massive oak door of Professor Rivers’s office. I had done my own investigative research and knew that he was in-between classes. His office was located on the south side of campus, tucked in an old ass building. The place was in much need of some TLC.
On the other side of the door, I heard the shuffling of feet right before it groaned open. Professor Rivers stood in the archway, his sky blue eyes flashed in the slightest surprise. “Mr. Winters. I wondered when you would find your way to my office. Come in.” He stepped aside, gesturing with a low sweep of his hand.
Don’t mind if I do. His office was a throwback to what I imagined a medieval chamber to look like. Not precisely inviting or
comforting. My eyes ran over the washed-out brick walls, along the embedded arched windows casting shadows on the floor. This was unexpected…and startling.
Weapons of a fearsome variety hung on the walls or were displayed in glass cases. Emma would go ballistic over his collection. If I was impressed, a hunter would drool. No doubt they were of the demonic sort. This room would make even the highest demon squeamish, which made Professor’s Rivers’s badass ranking spike, although no one could touch mine.
The material of his khakis swooshed as he walked to the other side of his desk. I sunk into one of the empty seats, stretching my long legs, and waited for him to get situated.
Professor Rivers leaned back in his oversized leather chair, resting his hands on the arms. He was chewing gum, casually. “So, to what do I owe this pleasure? I assume this isn’t regarding an assignment, considering I haven’t given any.”
It was hard to not get distracted by the art he had displayed in the room. I found myself staring intently at each piece, wondering if there was any “real life” experience behind it. Had he traveled? What was his story, because he definitely looked like a worldly man, someone who had seen more than I could have possibly imagined. Unfortunately, that was going to have to wait for another day. I didn’t have the luxury, not when time was ticking away, and I didn’t know how much time Angel had left before things went rancid.
“I’m hoping you might have information that would be useful to me,” I answered.
A brow shot up. “What kind of information?”
“Oh, you know, the usual stuff. Death. Demons. Divisa. The three big Ds.”
If I expected to shock him, I was sorely disappointed. He smiled. “My specialty.”
“That’s what I’m banking on,” I muttered.
“You aren’t my average student, Chase. You’re already ahead of the game. So what answers are you seeking?”
I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs. “Well, it’s complicated. There’s this girl—” How the hell did I explain my girlfriend drama? It was uncanny even for my standards.
Two of his fingers tapped thoughtfully on the leather. “We’re talking about the girl you unified the triforce with, correct?”
A bolt of suspicion ricocheted inside me, and I knew that my eyes were slowly shifting colors. Some things couldn’t be helped. “What do you know about Angel?” The funny thing was, she was the entire reason I was here, yet I was ready to fly out of my seat at the mere mention of her name.
It wasn’t lost on either of us that I had deliberately answered his question with a question, or that she was a touchy subject. “Obviously more than what makes you comfortable.” He shrugged. “People talk. News of this magnitude travels like a disease through our community.”
“Then we can skip the semantics and get straight to the point.” Presumptuous yes, but when wasn’t I?
“Oh, I have heard all about the famous Chase Winters and the human girl he risks everything for, but I’d rather get the information from the source.”
Another half-demon might have been threatened by the depths I was willing to risk for Angel, but not Professor Rivers. He made it sound as if I was some fictional hero from a book in the throes of an epic love story. I had to repress a snort. “I assure you, everything you heard is true.”
He chuckled. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
I ran down the bullet points of my relationship with Angel, omitting the juicy deets, of course, and that she was what Alastair called the keystone. Sharing Angel, any part of her, was extremely difficult and went against my natural instinct to guard her. Trusting someone I barely knew—it was like pulling teeth from a grizzly. Until I knew that Rivers was a good guy, I held back her reign over the underworld.
When I finished he was massaging his chin with the pad of his thumb in deep consideration, and when he finally did speak, it was more to himself in short, broken phrases, as if he was working out a math problem. “Molecular biology fluctuating. Links merging. Two souls. Two hearts. Two bodies. Unstable levels.”
“Uh, what? I don’t speak geekology.”
An apologetic half smile arose on his face. “Sorry. I was piecing together the possibilities. My brain functions like a puzzle.” Shifting to the edge of his seat, he began to gesture excitably with his hands as he spoke. “Angel,” he started, treading carefully just to make sure I wasn’t going to growl in protest. “When you and she completed the three rare bonds between a human and a half-demon, she took on mutated forms of your abilities—similar but unique. And I would bet my left arm that her genes are mutating, but without a blood sample it’s impossible to be sure.”
I might have growled at the mention of her giving blood. She had shed far too much already. “Not happening.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but then thought better and his lips formed a straight line. If he pushed this subject, I would protest a whole lot harder and with much more force. Neither of us wanted that. “I will leave the decision up to you. I trust that you know what is best and will do the right thing for Angel. But know this…Hell does not give up easily. I must warn you they will never stop trying to break free, and I think we both know that Angel might be their ticket to freedom. Be careful.”
“Duly noted. I do have another question. Hypothetical of course.”
“Of course,” he echoed, not in the least bit fooled.
“What do you know about Hell being able to invade Earth for good, without a human host?”
“It’s not possible. Demons are able to live in a host only as long as they feed on other humans for strength, stealing their life source. Their true form is not able to inhabit this plane for extended periods without an anchor to keep them stable.”
“And if they had an anchor?” Like Angel, I added in my head.
He raised his eyes, transmitting a silent question.
“I was just wondering. I like to be well-informed,” I quickly added.
“If Hell did have a foothold here, then something would have triggered a switch in power. That doesn’t come without a price. A huge one. What you are talking about would be catastrophic. The keystone literally becomes the portal. All beings of Hell latch onto the keystone, stabilizing their true forms to sustain Earth. No one could withstand that amount of energy without it destroying them. Soul, heart, and body.”
My head exploded with a string of f-bombs. Throwing in the destruction of our three bonds was a jaw-dropping slap in the face. It made my heart stop. I shook my head before my body decided to go into cardiac arrest. The mere idea of not being linked to Angel was insanity.
I recovered quickly, funneling all my emotion from my eyes. Already, I had given away too much.
The chair creaked as he swung back and forth. “Out of curiosity, what is it like being fused to a human?”
More than happy to change the subject, I muttered. “Er, it’s challenging, but I think that’s more of an Angel-thing. Being linked to her changed me. She changed everything. The way I see things. How I live. The decisions I make. Now, I might take a few more seconds to think about my actions before I go gung-ho, and, for the first time, I take someone else into consideration.”
“Wow,” he breathed. “I never thought it was possible. She calms your demon, doesn’t she? The beast is just as infatuated with her as the man.”
“Infatuated is a strong word,” I grumbled, resting my hands on my knees.
He fiddled with a pen on his desk, smiling. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”
That’s where he was wrong. I knew damn well just how lucky I was, how fortunate I was to have found someone who loved me for me—all of me—which only reinforced how important it was that I find a solution. “What do I have to do to stop her from mutating?” I asked.
He titled his head, a perplexed expression on his oval face. “You can’t.”
My fist slammed down on his desk, rattling the wood and overturning a picture frame or two. “Bullshit.” I refused to believe that she couldn’t b
e saved. But it was more than just mutating DNA, because together we had managed to get her in the middle of a royal mess.
“I can see your sheer determination. As a man who has spent his whole life studying the unknown, I firmly believe anything is possible. If anyone is going to change the impossible, I am putting my money on you, Chase.”
“Thanks, I think,” I muttered. There was a compliment in there somewhere.
Chapter 16
I hightailed it back across west campus in a haze of numbness, unable to feel my feet hit the ground. In my head, it was like a hamster wheel, spinning and spinning, an annoying buzz that just wouldn’t quit. I suppressed the desire to take off and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other at turtle speeds.
Strutting through the front door to a house that still didn’t quite feel like home, I steered my jumbled mind toward the kitchen, specifically for a jumbo ham sandwich with mayo, mustard, and tomato. I made it not two steps when I was bulldozed. Blindsided, I was struck from behind, and if my taste buds hadn’t been salivating, I might have had my usually sharp wits about me. It was inconceivable for someone to get the jump on me.
Holy snikey.
The thing about always being attacked, your reaction time was stellar. Mine was superb. I had spent my whole life fighting to survive and waiting for the next demon just around the corner. I should have guessed that my assailant wasn’t a demon, but an unstable whack job, not that most demons weren’t out of their gourds. However, there was only one currently insane person living under my roof.
Emma “thorn-in-my-side” Deen.
Joy.
I hit the floor, my shoulder slamming into the hard wood with the she-devil on top of me scratching, hissing, and biting. In general, being a complete pain in my ass, especially when I heard my shoulder pop.
Mid-air, I had turned, taking the brunt of the fall, but by doing so, I hadn’t been quick enough and my shoulder paid the price. There wasn’t time to think about the pain, not when she held nothing back, nor did I stop her. I deserved it and much, much more. In her shoes, I would have already plunged a knife through my heart.
