Chasing Angel (A Divisa Novel, Book 3)

by Weil, J. L.

  Travis and Lexi were Chase’s only family, and he valued family more than anything else. He would go to extreme lengths to protect them, even from themselves.

  No mercy shone in Travis’s eyes. He wanted blood. And blood he got as he slammed his fist into Chase’s stomach. Knowing Chase, he was letting his cousin get in a few cheap shots, but that didn’t mean I liked it. A squeak escaped my mouth. Travis didn’t stop with one hit. In quick succession, he threw punch after punch. Not everyone connected, but enough to make me want to jump in the middle.

  It was the worst feeling in the world watching your boyfriend get hurt. I tried to remind myself that the injuries would not last long. Chase would heal. No scars would mar that face.

  I was guessing Chase sensed my desire to intervene. He finally showed his dominance and hammered Travis against a tree. There was so much power behind his movement I was sure the tree was going to crack down the middle. He held him there suspended with a brute strength that Travis lacked. You don’t mess with a badass.

  “We are going to try this one more time,” Chase rumbled. “Or I will wipe your face on the ground for round two.”

  “Bring it on,” Travis replied, flirting with Chase’s temper.

  Oh boy. Not good.

  I prepared for round two.

  Chase’s fist shot out, connecting with Travis’s boyish face. His head snapped back like a Pez dispenser. There was a deep grumble in Travis’s chest right before a slow glimmer of sea green began to flicker at the center of his molten gold eyes. It was like watching the ocean consume the sandy shore. Had I not just had a brush with death, I would have found the transformation breathtaking.

  His blond head hung in defeat, refusing to meet either of our gazes. I waited patiently for somebody to say something, the cold air entering and exiting in my lungs. Then he was gone.

  I sunk against a tree, running a still shaky hand through my hair. “Is this what you do every night?” I asked Chase.

  He was immediately in front of me, studying my face. “That was mild,” he informed, brushing the pad of his thumb across my cheek.

  I closed my eyes.

  Travis is worse than I thought.

  “Chase, you have to let me do this. It’s the only way,” I tried to reason.

  “Damn it, Angel. I should lock you in your room for the rest of your life. If you pull another stunt like that again…”

  My clothes were wet. I was frozen to the bone. And I was in a piss-poor mood. I did not want or need a lecture from the high and mighty Chase Winters. “You are being a stubborn prick.”

  His expression never changed. “Damn right I am.”

  Arrr.

  The man drove me insane.

  I hated that they fought, knowing that I was the cause. Sure I hadn’t forced Travis to attack me, but I had been the one to force the confrontation. All those times that Chase went after Travis late at night, I knew things had gotten heated, but…that had been beyond my expectations. Travis wasn’t Travis. He was volatile. He was unpredictable. He was just down right dangerous, to himself and to others. I saw that now.

  Deep down I knew Chase was only looking out for me, and here I was making things more complicated. It was what I did best. Drama follows me like the stink of a skunk.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, wiping away droplets of blood at his forehead. “I just wanted to help.”

  He caught my hand. “I know.” He pressed a kiss to my palm. As he glanced over my head, I felt him stiffen. “There is something lurking out here. I can feel it. It makes my skin crawl and my demon mark burn. I don’t like it.” His eyes kept scanning the area, looking for something to pinpoint the warning that his body was sending him.

  “I feel it, too,” I said shivering, and it had nothing to do with the chilly air.

  The scratch on my cheek stung, but I knew by morning it would be gone. I just needed to suck it up like a big girl until then. Both Chase and Travis had sustained injuries much worse and neither of them was bitching.

  I frowned, which was followed by a wince.

  Smiling and frowning were out of the question. The slightest movement caused discomfort. I became the center of Chase’s attention as he picked up on my pain, because the next thing I knew, I was being plucked off my feet and we were flying through the trees. I closed my eyes before I puked my guts out.

  Chapter 6

  “That was a dumb move yesterday,” Lexi told me as we walked down the halls at Hell High, I mean Hall High.

  Yada. Yada. Yada. “I’ve already been grilled to the bone,” I said dryly.

  “But…” Her heels clicked in time with the clomping of my Converses.

  “But what?” I gave her a sideways glance.

  She had her blonde hair in a perfectly tied ponytail, not a strand out of place. Unlike mine. My hair was also in a ponytail, but it looked like I had stood in front of an airplane engine. There were flyaways everywhere, and no amount of hair product helped.

  She hugged her pink leopard notebook to her chest. “For what it is worth, I don’t think that your idea sucked, just your execution.”

  Surprise crossed my face. “He told you, huh?”

  She nodded, sending her silky ponytail swinging. “Well, it was more like he was letting off steam and it slipped out.”

  “I just bet. Chase wasn’t exactly thrilled with me.”

  “Whatever.” She waved a French-manicured hand in the air. “At least we have matching holes in the wall now.”

  I snickered, though it really wasn’t funny.

  “Seriously. Chase will be pissed if he finds out what I’m about to say, but tough titties.”

  She had my full attention now. If it was going to get under Chase’s skin, then you can bet I was game.

  She grinned, dimples and all. “I want to help you.”

  I did a double take. “Let me get this straight. You want to help me compel Emma?” I lowered my voice over that last bit.

  Her turquoise eyes lit with mischief. “You got it, sister.”

  She didn’t mean sister literally, but it hit a little too close to home thanks to her dad dating my mom. Becoming sister’s looked more and more like a possibility.

  Ugh.

  I screwed up my face. “We’re not sisters yet,” I mumbled.

  She rolled her eyes. “We will be. I just know it. We are going to have so much fun. So what do you say, sis? Are we going to do this?”

  Lord, help me. This was definitely one of those things that was going to come back and bite me in the ass. I just knew it. “What the hell. Let’s do it.”

  She gave me the brightest smile and hugged me right before we walked into class. “Thank you.”

  I gave her a quick squeeze even though I wasn’t much of a hugger, Chase being the exception.

  It went without being said—the big guy was not to know. And there lay my first dilemma.

  Crap.

  Keeping secrets when you were bonded in some hellish voodoo was not precisely easy. I just hoped I could at least pull it off until the dirty deed was done.

  Assuming Emma didn’t kill me before then.

  ~*~*~*~

  After school, Chase dropped me off at my house and told me he would be back in a little bit. Code for “I need to go check on my off-the-handle cousin.” I nodded, not knowing what else to say. Between him and me, our emotions were ping ponging all over the place. There was no point trying to filter through them, so I went inside and attempted to distract myself.

  The house was empty when I walked in, just me and the creepy creaks and groans of my house settling. It was extra windy today, making the house eerie. Two Twinkies later, I sat in the kitchen licking the cream off my fingers while attempting to work on my calculus homework. This was not my type of distraction. If anything, it made my head hurt.

  After twenty minutes of biting the end of my pencil, I decided I needed a distraction from my distraction. Since Chase wasn’t around, I went for the next best thing. Xbox.

>   I sighed when my fingers touched the buttons, and before long, I was lost in the world of Borderlands 2. Gaige and her red pigtails were bouncing across my screen, kicking ass and taking names—my new motto. Like the remote was an extension of my hand, my fingers moved without real thought. It was a great, mindless diversion from whatever bizzaro stuff was going on next door.

  I was in the zone when I felt the tingles, a sure sign that Chase was near. I saved my progress before someone decided to try to pull the plug on me again. So not cool. That still burned my butt.

  I glanced up to see Chase leaning in my doorway, watching me with a come-get-me grin. All thoughts of Gaige disappeared. There was never room for anyone or anything else when Chase was in the room. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he walked to my bed. Sitting up, the mattress shifted under Chase’s weight. His eyes were direct and intense on me.

  “Hey. How’s Tr—”

  Suddenly his lips were moving over mine, taking me to new heights. There was a moment where I savored the magical feeling that gushed through me right before I dived into the kiss. His lips had the power to break hearts.

  When the kiss ended he kept me close, rubbing our noses together.

  “Umm. What was that for?” He left me breathless and aching for more.

  “Every time I come to see you, I tell myself that I am not going to touch you.” His finger ran up my arm. “But the moment I see you, that plan goes down the crapper. I can’t help but touch you.” The pad of his thumb traced my lower lip as it trembled. “Kiss you.” He pressed his lips to mine, and I leaned into his kiss.

  It was a quick, tender kiss that ended far too soon. “Good. I like knowing you think about me.”

  His lips twitched. “You’re all I think about. I love you, Angel Eyes.”

  A lump of emotion formed in my throat, and my heart thumped in triple time. I couldn’t help but stare. “I want to have sex with you,” I said in a dreamy tone.

  Wait. What? Oh shit.

  Did that just come out of my mouth?

  Please, God, don’t let it be. This had to be a bad dream. What was wrong with me? What was I thinking?

  In my head I was saying, I love you, Chase Winters, but my mouth…ugh. My mouth had an entirely different agenda, and apparently my body did too. It wanted to do the freaky deaky with Chase. It was like I had lost total control over my tongue.

  My brain was broken.

  “Wait, that’s not what I meant to say.” But the mood was already broken and Chase was laughing at me. He fell backwards onto the bed. “Keep laughing asshole,” I grumbled and clobbered him over the head with my pillow, which only caused him to laugh harder. I was finding it difficult to hold on to my annoyance when the sound of his laughter was doing funny things to my belly. And damn if he didn’t look smoldering hot rolling on my bed.

  He wore a shit-eating grin as he looked up at me. “Angel, that was best compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

  I rolled my eyes, finding that hard to believe. “You would take it as a compliment.”

  He arched his brow. The silver hoop glinted off the dim lighting. “I am pretty sure wanting to have sex with me is sort of a compliment.”

  “Whatever. Can we drop it now?”

  In a move that defied gravity, I was flat on my back with Chase on top of me. “And what if I said I wanted to have sex with you?”

  Holy hot demon’s breath.

  “Now?” I squeaked.

  He nipped at my chin, teeth grazing my skin. “What would you say?”

  I shivered. In the back of my head I knew this was a trick question. He was testing me, but in the heat of the moment I could only say one thing. “Yes,” I half sighed, half moaned.

  “Angel,” he groaned and partly growled. Flipping off me, he lay on his back, but not before I saw that quick flash of gold. “You are supposed to have more restraint than that.”

  “Seriously?” My body already mourned the loss of his and the intense heat he took with him. “You play dirty.”

  His black hair was messy from my hands. “That’s the point. You have to be able to say no.”

  I frowned. “But I don’t want to say no.”

  “We talked about this.” There was exasperation in his voice. “We agreed to wait until after high school, to give you more time to decide if this is what you really want. College is right around the corner, and so is a whole new world of possibilities.”

  College—ugh.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was all for college…if Chase was there.

  I shook my head, which got his boxers in a bundle. “I agreed to no such thing.”

  “Angel,” he roared.

  Smiling, I propped up on my elbow, brought our faces close, and chewed the inside of my cheek. The idea running rampant in my head was definitely devious, but he deserved a little payback. I deliberately stared at his mouth, ignoring the dark scowl, and whispered, “It’s my choice.” Then with a boldness I normally didn’t possess, I ran my fingers along the inside of his waistline. “And I want you.”

  He closed his eyes and hissed. His stomach muscles jumped under my touch, making my blood rush. I knew that if I didn’t stop touching him soon, I would be caught in my own web of fire. My clumsy fingers fumbled with the button of his jeans. “Open your eyes,” I murmured. Our lips were so close we breathed each other’s air.

  One of his hands shot out, circling my wrist, and then I was drowning in gold and silver. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I thought it was pretty obvious.”

  He grinned. “It was.”

  “Then why did you stop me?”

  He tugged me down into the crock of his arm, placing his other hand behind his head. “You know why.”

  I thumped my fingers on his pecs, contemplating a freezing shower. “Do you ever want to change what you are?” I asked.

  “Unlike Lexi, I’ve never really given it much thought. It just is. Thinking otherwise isn’t going to change me.”

  “What if there was a way to get rid of the demon. Would you want to?”

  “You are just brimming with questions better left unspoken. I accept who I am, the good and the bad. It has made me who I am. I think it is scarier wondering who I would be without this curse. I was damned the second I was conceived.”

  I propped my chin on his chest so we were eye to eye. “I don’t believe that. You are not damned.”

  “Don’t try to save me, Angel.”

  Reluctantly, I rested my head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart intermixing with the swirling of our feelings. “Will it always feel like that, our emotions merging?” I asked, placing my hand on his heart.

  His finger traced lazy circles on my neck, and my heart fluttered. “I’ll always know when you are worried, happy, sad, or angry. You can probably do the same. It might take time and practice to determine whose feelings are whose, but you should be able to filter through them.”

  I was already getting pretty good at that, but when our emotions mirrored each other, it got sticky. “Tell me what it’s like when he takes over.” Talking about his demon wasn’t something he was comfortable with, but I couldn’t help myself. His demon fascinated me in ways I couldn’t explain. I was drawn to both of them.

  His hand played with my hair. It was both relaxing and electric. “I don’t know how to put it into words. I guess it is like having another soul live inside you. One that wants to break free, but you know that if he does, people will get hurt. Once he surfaces, you are unable to control what he does, but it never stops me from trying to disband the roaring demon inside.”

  “Except with me... He doesn’t want to harm me.”

  “You are the exception,” he admitted. “I didn’t think it was ever possible for the demon and me to agree on anything. We are always pulling each other in opposite directions, except when it concerns you. I still haven’t figured out why, but I have a theory.”

  “Oh yeah. What is it?” I asked curiously, peaking up at him fro
m under my lashes. My chin rested on his chest.

  “I’ve never put any stock into the whole fate stuff. I always believed that you made your own destiny, but after meeting you, I’m not so sure anymore. If there is such a thing as soul mates, you would be mine.”

  My heart trembled, and my cheeks blushed. I liked the sound of that. “Do you think there are others like us?”

  “Angel, you and I are one of a kind.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He shrugged. “It’s unheard of. None of this makes sense. You were supposed to be afraid of me. You weren’t supposed to fall in love with me. My demon shouldn’t care for you, yet both of those things happened.”

  Now this was getting interesting. “You didn’t want to have feelings for me, but your demon did?”

  His silver eyes danced. “Go figure. And to clarify, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to have feelings for you; it was just that I thought fate was fucking with me. You seemed too good to be true, but no matter what I tried, or how much I convinced myself, I could never get you out of my head. The demon inside me made sure of it.”

  “You didn’t think you were worthy of love?” The arrogant Chase wasn’t so tough after all. He had a heart.

  “Maybe,” he neither denied nor confirmed.

  “And now?” I asked, smiling.

  He studied my face a moment before the corner of his mouth twitched. “Now it doesn’t matter. I already got you.”

  Did he ever! We were bound by heart and soul.

  How much more trouble could we get into?

  Turns out…a lot.

  Never underestimate the amount of shit I can get myself into.

  Chapter 7

  Lexi and I were discussing operation wipeout in an undisclosed secret location.

  We were at Victoria’s Secret, neck deep in bras and panties. Lexi was in sinful heaven, and I was drowning in embarrassment hell. Why I ever let Lexi take charge was still a mystery to me, but at least her method was effective. Shopping was pretty much the only guarantee that neither Emma nor Chase would be snooping about.