Chasing Angel (A Divisa Novel, Book 3)

by Weil, J. L.

  The cocky smile on Chase’s lips couldn’t get any wider.

  I knew just how to dropkick him off his power trip. “Not against Alastair.”

  Chase scowled. “She’s right. I am all but defenseless when he commands it. Fucking curse.”

  Devin gave him a pointed look for his language. “Then it is a damn good thing he has you.”

  Chase and I both stared at him dumbfounded. “What do you mean?” Chase asked, swinging his legs off the table and leaning forward on the chair, his interest piqued.

  “You saw what she did that night. With each connection she makes to you, it brings her closer to the veil of Hell.”

  Umm, this sounded very bad. I wasn’t sure I was ready for what Devin had to say.

  “When the last link is in place, she will wield as much control over those serving Alastair as Alastair himself. She will be able to see through the illusions created by demons. They won’t work on her. If legends hold any truth, Chase will no longer have a connection to his sire, but to you.”

  Holy shit buckets.

  “Are you saying that he won’t be able to restrain me anymore?” Chase asked, and I heard that hint of hope he was always so afraid to feel.

  Calculating light filled Devin’s expression. “In theory, no he can’t.”

  A glint sprang into Chase’s silver eyes only to be extinguished seconds later. “Wait, you said that my connection would switch from the demon to Angel, does that mean she could potentially stop me?”

  Devin grinned. “Sticking with the theory, yep she could.”

  Now it was my turn to smile like a little shit. Oh yeah.

  He turned that flinty gaze to me. “I can’t decide if that is better or worse.”

  “Well, like I said, the three bonds have to be fulfilled before that is even a possibility.”

  Chase and I looked at each other. When or if the triforce was complete wasn’t a question anymore. The deed had already been done. Though Lexi had hinted that her dad knew Chase and I had bumped uglies, I didn’t want to assume. I knew all too well what happened when you assume, and I didn’t want to make an ass out of myself in front to Devin.

  Here comes an enormous amount of awkwardness.

  I wanted to wilt from the chair and let Chase take the ball on this one. Shifting in my seat, I glanced at him. Brow bent, he stretched out again in a relaxed position, not saying a word. I lifted my brow right back at him, teeth clenched. He was not going to corner me into telling Devin we’d had sex. Not happening. An uncomfortable silence extended out into the cozy room. I started biting my nails and swinging my legs under my chair.

  Devin looked back and forth between us. “Are either one of you going to tell me what is going on?”

  Chase sighed. “I guess that is going to be me. So we might have finished the binding triangle,” Chase finally manned up, feeling my stubbornness and utter embarrassment. Sex talk with my boyfriend’s uncle wasn’t exactly a hot topic for me, but it made me feel a little bit better knowing that Chase also found it weird.

  I couldn’t meet Devin in the eye, so I stared behind his head at all the paintings of exotic and beautiful places.

  “I see. It’s complete.” He folded his hands on his desk, keeping his cool far better than I anticipated. “And apparently the underworld is not very happy with the outcome.”

  “I’d say not,” Chase had to add.

  “If that is true, he will come for you—soon.” He started to shuffle through mounds of paper, looking for what I did not know.

  “What do we do?” I asked, looking for great words of wisdom.

  “We wait.”

  Not precisely what I’d thought I’d hear from Devin. I wasn’t known for my patience. “That’s bullcrap. I can’t just sit here.”

  Devin didn’t appear happy about our options either. “What choice to do we have? It is oblivious that Alastair is pulling the strings.”

  I jumped to my feet, feeling a surge of anger and fear tear through me. For once, I didn’t need someone to tell me that my eyes were glowing. I caught my reflection in one of the framed pictures, an electric blue radiating off glass.

  Chase placed a hand on my arm. “Whoa there, She-Ra. Let’s not go all gung-ho before we know what we are getting into. I am not willing nor will I let you foolishly give up your life.”

  “I have to give him whatever he wants.”

  Chase shot to his feet so fast I didn’t even see him move. “Absolutely not.”

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cause bodily harm.

  Inside I felt like a bubbling volcano, ready to burst. All these emotions were churning inside me, and I was feeling helpless. I was going to lose it, right here in Devin’s office. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. This is my mom, Chase.” Anger tears punctuated my words, making them somewhat inaudible.

  Most people would feel nervous about having two emotionally unstable somewhat-humans on the verge of…who knew. None of us actually knew what I was capable of. And Chase, well, you could always count on Chase to be unpredictable.

  Devin surprised us both when he spoke, interrupting our pissing match. “We are not going to let him take another person I love,” he declared passionately, so much so that I believed him.

  Devin was sort of a badass in his own way. Who would have thunk?

  And he just admitted that he loved my mom. Oh boy.

  I sat back down, unable take my eyes off Devin’s. The determination that shone there was as bright as mine. It was nice to have someone on my side. Chase took a few more moments to calm down.

  “Did you ever tell her about Chase? What he is?” I asked. It had been on my mind the whole time we had stayed with them.

  Regret crossed his expression. “I didn’t get the chance.”

  “But you planned on telling her?”

  He nodded, running a hand through his sandy hair. “All of it, but I wanted to discuss it first with you, and with Lex, Travis, and Chase. This isn’t a decision for me to make solely.”

  That we agreed on, but now…did it matter? “She gone,” I whispered. “He has her.” Horror ricocheted inside my gut, traveling through the length of me. “Can’t I just demand he return her?” I asked, grabbing at straws.

  “I wish it was that easy,” Devin said.

  Alastair came to me that night. I was just thankful I didn’t have to wait days.

  Chapter 25

  He appeared as just a man. Nothing special. Nothing all mighty. Just an average guy in jeans and a crisp shirt with polished raven hair. Nothing memorable—except the eyes.

  No matter how much glamour demons used, for me, their eyes were all the same. Black. Emotionless. Tortured. Damned.

  Even in dreams. I guess the realm didn’t matter. Scum was scum, regardless of where they materialized.

  My body stiffened as he approached in long easy strides. Everything around us was black. There were no definite walls or boundaries, just fluid darkness. As he sauntered toward me, it was like he was walking on air, floating. I glanced down at my Converses and tried not to freak out. There was nothing holding me up, keeping me grounded, and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t real. Alastair had the power to control my dreams, but I knew I should still be able to shatter them.

  At this moment, his games were the last thing on my mind.

  “I want my mom,” I demanded in a voice so much steadier than I felt and with more conviction than I thought I had.

  He popped in front of me. “I can see where you get your perseverance. It’s…enduring for a time, but then it becomes downright bothersome.” He gripped my chin in one hand, holding me with his shiny eyes. “And my dear, I am not in the mood to be tampered with.”

  That made two of us. Jerking my jaw out of his grasp, I closed my eyes. Big mistake. The screams of a million souls erupted in my head, and just as quickly, my eyes flew back open. I was not in the mood to let some d-bag from Hell bully me. “Can we just get straight to the point? What do you w
ant? And don’t blow any smoke up my butt.”

  He arched a brow similar to Chase’s, but it lacked the most charming part—the silver hoop. “I’ve made my intentions very clear, and I so hoped we could get off on the right foot. It’s a pity it had to come to such dire measures. I had really hoped to spare your mom. She has such spirit.”

  The mention of Mom and the implication that she had fought him made me see red. I really wanted to wrap my small hands around his neck and squeeze until his black eyes popped. My teeth ground together as I threatened in a tight voice. “If you harmed one freckle on her face—”

  “I don’t think you are in a position to make threats. You really don’t have any other choice but to give me what I seek.”

  Blackmail, is what he meant. “Just say where and when.” My temper was so past reasoning that I didn’t know what I had agreed to until it was too late. But even after I realized what happened, I knew that I wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

  Chase was going to kill me, but I had to do whatever it took to save her. I owed it to her. She never would have been in this situation if it weren’t for me. Mom spent her life looking out for me, protecting me, giving me the best she could. It was my turn to return the favor.

  “You’re eyes…” he started to say.

  Here we go again.

  Why was everyone so fascinated with my eyes?

  “If you even think about telling me that they are glowing or doing some other kind of freakish trick, I’ll—”

  Christ. I honestly didn’t know what I would do. I had nothing to threaten him with. He had me by the lady balls.

  His sooty eyes laughed at me.

  Asshole.

  He took a step forward. “I was only going to say that you are ready.” He had no problem constantly invading my personal space. It was disconcerting.

  Ready for what? “Do you get off on being cryptic for shits and giggles?” I asked feeling spiteful.

  He laughed, a booming, deep-in-the-belly laugh.

  Ookay. I wasn’t even trying to be funny. I was thinking this demon dude had a warped sense of humor. Nonetheless, a shudder ran down my spine.

  “I am very much looking forward to our undertaking.”

  That word undertaking made me nervous. “Are you going to tell me why you need me?” I prodded, sounding bitter.

  A dark gleam sparkled in his twisted expression. “All in due time, but it is going to blow the universe into a new era.”

  That sounded…God-forsaken awful.

  “Tomorrow night,” he continued. “I will return your caregiver to the place of your death.”

  I assumed he meant my mom. She would have a fit if she heard anyone refer to her as a caregiver.

  Alastair’s thin lips leered into a grin that made my skin itch. “There is a powerful energy that marks the ground where you took your last breath, a thinning veil between Earth and Hell. It is there we shall meet.”

  Grotesquely poetic.

  “Unharmed?” I asked. You can never be too careful with underworld dealings. I knew I was going to get screwed somehow. Hopefully Mom would be safe before then, so it didn’t hurt to double—triple check.

  His expression was neither warm nor cold. Not what I would call very reassuring. “Unharmed. You have my word.”

  I gave him the stink-eye. “Your word doesn’t mean crap to me.”

  He shrugged his shoulders smugly, knowing he had me in the palm of his scaly hand. “What choice do you really have, love? Oh, and before I forget, you must come alone. I am sure you understand. We can’t have any complications getting in the way.”

  Meaning Chase.

  “How do you expect me to ditch the boyfriend? We’re kind of joined at the hip.” Pun intended.

  “Not my problem. And if you cross me, sweetie, I will make it sure this time you stay dead.”

  Note to self: Do not fail.

  I awoke with my heart racing and covered in sweat. If I hadn’t been pinned under a sweltering half-demon, I would have bolted straight up, but my body did jerk, and my eyes jolted open. It felt like an inferno in Chase’s room. Probably didn’t help that he was tangled around me and his temperature ran like a thousand degrees hotter than mine. It was like being swaddled by the sun.

  “You okay?” he mumbled in a voice heavy with sleep. It was sexy and gruff.

  I immediately turned into him, and he was ready for me with an arm already open. Wrapped around each other, I took a few long breaths, calmed by the scent of him. “It was nothing. Just another nightmare.” It was getting to the point where I was having a hard time discerning between the living and the dreaming nightmares. They both sucked serious poo.

  “Was it him?”

  Lying wasn’t an option, and even if it were, I still would have told him the truth. “Yeah.”

  A heartbeat passed. “Let me help get your mind off it,” he murmured, slipping a hand under my oversized shirt.

  Finally, he had an idea we both could agree on.

  As his lips pressed to mine, a soft, warm sigh escaped my mouth. I needed this, needed him. My eyes fluttered closed, and a shudder rolled through me, stealing my air. The touch of his lips moving over mine, rearranged my insides. His fingers curled at the small of my back, gripping a fistful of cotton material.

  He made me forgot more than just my bad dream. Those lips of his caressed mine, tantalizing, taking me to both Heaven and Hell. A place where there was no room for anything else except him and me. I could gladly stay here for the rest of time and forget about all the crapola that waited for me in the real world.

  Just barely pulling away, my chest rose and fell rapidly as I looked down into his dark and dangerously sexy face. His lids were half closed, framed by the longest lashes known to man. Eyes aglow peeked at me. A single strand of hair fell over his face, and my chest swelled with desperate emotion and longing. I slid my hand over the sharp plane of his cheek. “I love you,” I vowed, our lips brushing as I spoke.

  “I know.” He gave me a lopsided grin and placed a hand over my heart. “I can feel it shouting from you.”

  Before I spat off some famous smartass comeback, he was kissing me again. I felt it all the way to the depth of my soul—our soul.

  With speed that had my senses spinning, I was flat on my back and my I’d rather be gaming oversized shirt…was gone. If I hadn’t been so caught up in the feelings he enticed, I might have been awestruck, but I’d never admit it. His hands traced up my arms in feather-light touches as he kept his gleaming gaze centered on mine. Sparks were shooting off my skin. When he reached my open palms, he interlocked our fingers.

  This time when he kissed me, it was fierce, long, and hard, imprinting me with his signature, not that I could be any more his. It didn’t stop me from putting everything I had, everything I felt, everything I wanted into this kiss. I wanted him to feel, to know indubitably how deep my love ran for him.

  My body arched up into his, wiggling impatiently. He groaned into my mouth, swallowed by our kiss. Dragging his lips from mine, his eyes flashed, a blending of both Chase and his demon. It made my blood simmer. I drew in a ragged breath of air tasting of Chase. He stared down at my face, looking at me in wonder and awe.

  I didn’t need to see his expression to know what was going through his head. His emotions were inside me. When we were connected like this, all barriers collapsed and our feelings merged together. Especially when they mirrored one another as they did now.

  “Don’t think of mentioning my eyes,” I warned in a raspy voice, filtering my hands into his hair. I knew that my eyes must be lustrous like blue flames. They seemed to feed off strong emotions, and for me it didn’t get much stronger than being intimate with Chase, being lavished by his touch.

  With half grin, he said. “They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  Tingles danced down my spine and radiated at my hip. Then his head dipped and we were no longer two beings, just one. Joined by love, passion, and a supernatural bond. He took my
body on a rollercoaster of feelings, higher, soaring to the Heavens before tumbling me over the edge.

  I fell asleep bone-tired, sedated, and in an idyllic harmony with the lug beside me. Our hearts beat together. The deep, even breaths of sleep were in rhythmic time. Never had two beings been so in tune to each other as Chase and I were.

  Chapter 26

  Today was turning out to be a virtual waste. I don’t know why I had even bothered with school. I accomplished not a damn thing, because all I could think about was what was going to happen tonight. How ironic would it be to die in the same place twice?

  There were so many questions and uncertainties circling around in my head. Of course I hadn’t gotten up the nerve yet to tell Chase what I planned to do. I knew that he would stop me, shoot down my plan and list all the reasons why it sucked big time. How it was destined to end in my death, and really, it just might. However, nothing was going to change my mind, so I didn’t see the point in confiding in him.

  Lie by omission.

  I was praying that it would buy me just enough time to save my mom before Chase came storming in to wreak havoc. It wasn’t a matter of “if” but “when”. He would be in rare form, a raging demon with a serious bout of devastation. A problem for another day, and I just hoped he would forgive me.

  “Why so down in the dumps, Morgan?” And just like that I was wedged in a Brandy and Kailyn sandwich.

  “Did you see the article in the paper? About the killer still on the loose?” Kailyn asked, chatting as if she were talking about what she had for breakfast.

  I found it hard to focus on what they were saying, but the mention of Alastair had me perking up, fired by anger and fear—a deadly combo in my book. It could make a person clumsy and do redonkulous things.

  It had a been a few months since Sierra’s murder, but the fact that her killer was still at large kept people on edge. Let them think that was what troubled me. It was better than the truth.

  My mom had been kidnapped by a psychotic demon.

  “It’s so strange,” Brandy said, flipping her long dark hair over her shoulder. “You never think something like that would happen in your town.”