by Michele Hauf
“I can. Pressed against my hip like some kind of battle weapon. Maybe I’m not so good after all.”
“You are a very bad good girl. I like that.” He kissed the lobe of her ear and trickled more kisses along her jaw. Drawing her around in front of him, Cooper leaned against the wall and kissed the back of her neck through her wet hair.
“Oh…” She sighed. “That. Is. Don’t stop. Just. Don’t.”
Here she smelled wild and dangerous. Nothing about her was hard or vicious. She was all woman. And for now, Cooper was all man.
“You know what you said earlier about there being no good or evil?” he asked. “No right or wrong. Only choice.”
“What does that have to do with what you’re doing to me at this moment?”
“Everything.” He stopped kissing her and clasped his hands about her body, hugging them beneath her breasts. “I agree with you, Pyx. The world is not black and white. We can be whoever and whatever we wish to be.”
She pushed him away, her fingernails slashing the skin of his fists. Her expression did not say “more, please” but rather “now you’ve done it.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “What I said was just something stupid. I don’t even know where it came from. This—this embrace is wrong.”
Sensing the demon had returned to Pyx’s eyes, he raised his hands in placation. He should have kept his thoughts to himself, and his tongue wrapped around her nipple. Idiot.
“Leave me,” she demanded. “I’ve had enough of you tonight.”
“As you wish.”
Settling to sit on the wet rooftop, Pyx spread her legs before her and tilted her head, opening her mouth to catch the rain. Her entire body shivered and her muscles flexed. Her mouth was warm and tingly where Cooper had claimed her. Her breasts ached for his hands and tongue again. And her loins were hot with desire. It was as if he could mold her to any shape he desired.
Except the one shape she couldn’t bear—compliance.
Yet she continued to struggle with proving herself to the Sinistari and simply being a woman who could be desired by a man.
So this was desire? The feeling encompassed so much; it was overwhelming and making her nervous and giddy. She wanted Cooper at her mouth—and she was glad he was gone.
The taste of him tainted her sense of mission, confusing it with need. She didn’t need anything but to slay the damned angel. But what she wanted was more than anything she could grasp since she had arrived on earth.
Sucking in her lower lip, she closed her eyes and squeezed her hands between her thighs. The erotic tingling at her mons lingered. It wasn’t going to go away soon. She needed him pressed against her body. She wanted to feel what a man could do to a woman.
No one would have to know. Her Sinistari brethren would have no idea what she did before slaying the angel.
And what a sweet triumph over the Fallen should she lure him into her arms, to sully himself with a demon.
Cooper stalked the rainy streets. Rain soaked his clothes and he was growing angry at the insolent weather. Ridiculous, eh? Only minutes earlier he’d been devouring a gorgeous woman in the rain as if they stood in a shower surrounded by the world.
With a shake of his shoulders he assumed a new pair of jeans and sweater, both dry.
Why couldn’t Pyx remember her origins? She’d spoken the words yet claimed to not understand why. Frustrating. She was Kadesch, he knew it. But how to be sure? Kissing her was not a means to learn that answer. Yet the sensual distraction always reared up when he and Pyx were together.
He enjoyed kissing women. That’s as far as he’d gotten—kissing. The sensual exploration was so intense. It had been millennia since he’d had full-on sex with a woman. Did that make him a virgin as well?
He couldn’t remember what it had been like. Which was why he languished in the slow seduction now. It was almost enough to satisfy and giving pleasure was an immense reward. But he knew he could never achieve complete satisfaction by having sex with a mortal woman. Only if she were his muse.
Yet was that one goal, the orgasm, so sweet when it was with a woman he’d rather not touch? A woman he must stay away from?
And what about demons? He had no idea how that would go.
Pyx was so ready. Hungry for the mortal pleasure of sex.
Sex between a Fallen and a Sinistari could only end badly. What was he thinking?
Yet if he thought about it even harder, he could come to some remarkable conclusions about their origins, and how maybe they should be together. They were more alike than different.
“Kadesch,” he muttered.
He passed the café. A few lights were still on inside, yet the interior was bare of patrons. The closing crew must be cleaning up for the night.
Cooper paused across the street from the café and sighted two waitresses. One was Sophia, elbows propped on the counter, talking to another waitress. Thick black hair spilled over her shoulders and she laughed. He felt those gorgeous tones in his chest as if she stood before him right now. He clasped a hand over his heart and winced. She’d unbuttoned another button on her shirt, revealing her voluptuous curves.
How sweet it would be to draw his tongue along those curves. To taste her skin and read her flesh as it slipped under the whorls on his fingertips. If he had whorls. Cooper rubbed his fingers together. Smooth. His skin had not the telltale signs of mortality. Not until he got a soul.
Sophia was one hundred percent mortal, all soft skin and luscious laughter. To touch her and watch as her breathing grew faster, her back arched and her legs would part in welcome.
Cooper blew out a sigh.
The moment he surrendered to the muse’s allure Pyx would have her wish. And he wouldn’t have to dream about a soul or about someday having stupid, frikkin’ whorls, because he’d be dead.
All this time he’d been drawn to the café because his muse worked there. She hadn’t needed to be in the exact place, and still he’d been compelled to it. What strange irony the one place he felt hadn’t been calling to him, had been luring him after all.
He didn’t need the muse. He could have sex with women and take pleasure from their pleasure. He would not be curious about Sophia. He must not be.
He’d walk around the café, taking an extra block out of his way. If he was lucky, he’d find his halo and then wouldn’t have this problem.
Like that was ever going to happen. Who was the mysterious MD mentioned between Eden Campbell and her online friend, and could MD help Cooper?
Forcing himself to walk onward, Cooper punched a wooden street pole. The half-foot diameter pole cracked, but didn’t break. He restrained himself from delivering the coup de grâce.
“I can do this,” he muttered. “I need to get serious about finding my halo. No more chasing vampires with the Sinistari. And no more kissing her. She is the enemy. Don’t forget that, Cooper, or you’re a pile of angel ash.”
He entered the foyer of his building and shook off the rain from his wool sweater. He shook his head, spattering rain droplets over the heavy carpeting. Glancing to the mailboxes, and thinking some day he too would receive mail, like a normal mortal man, gave him a smile.
His mood lifted, Cooper decided to take the stairs instead of flashing up to his apartment.
Leaving a wet trail to his front door, he paused, noticing the door was ajar. Muscles tightening, he scanned the hallway. No sign of anyone near.
Reaching behind his hip for the throwing star, he pushed the door open noiselessly and stalked down the long narrow hall toward the kitchen.
Though the world appeared to him in vivid color and sensory feeling, he could not pick up the scent of anyone close to him. He couldn’t get a read on whether there was an intruder inside or if he’d been robbed and the thief was long gone.
He passed the living room, slinking against the wall. Everything was in order. Moonlight cast shadows across the sofa where he and Pyx had once sat, kissing.
Kissing a demon. What ki
nd of idiot was he?
The warrior angel he had once been would have already slain the nuisance.
Pressing a shoulder to the wall, Cooper listened for sound from the kitchen, and beyond, perhaps his bedroom.
He stepped around the wall and into the kitchen, which was lit by the small lamp over the stove. A man with short dark hair and a scar bracketing his left eye sat before the table, one leg crossed over his knee. He nodded to Cooper.
“Michael Donovan,” he introduced himself. “We need to talk.”
Chapter 11
Cooper’s simmering rage boiled over at the man’s insolence. He tossed the throwing star, landing it on the table between the man’s arms.
Donovan lifted a brow, but didn’t look down at the weapon. “After the hell I’ve been through the past few weeks, that impresses me little. Got anything better?”
“Oh, I do, but you’d piss your pants and I happen to like that chair.”
The man opened his jacket to reveal the handle of a gun. “Let’s see who pisses first.”
Cooper lunged, grabbing the guy by the shirt and lifting him from the chair. The man’s blue eyes remained cool. Then Cooper noticed the hard gun barrel poking his ribs.
Anger took over. Screw humanity. Juphiel was not completely absent from this mortal costume.
“I can see we’re going to have to do this the hard way,” Cooper said. He shoved the man and he landed the chair with an “ouf!”
The change came over him swiftly. Cooper growled as mortal flesh gave way to his natural angelic state. He could only shift halfway, from hips up, since he’d Fallen. That’s all he needed. In twenty seconds he stood before the man whose smirk had dropped, as well as the gun barrel.
“Holy shit!” Donovan stumbled out of the chair and Cooper backed him toward the wall.
Cooper knew what he looked like. Not for human consumption. His eyes glowed blue, as did the sigil on his abdomen. His upper body was of liquid glass designed to emulate human ribs and gut. His glass heart glimmered between crisscrossing glass rib bones. And his jaw clacked when he opened it wide to growl.
“Impressed now?” Cooper asked in a voice edged with a bell-like scrape that, to mortals, sounded like glass cutting stone.
Donovan nodded furiously. “You’re a-an angel?”
That he knew what kind of creature he was surprised Cooper, and in that moment the irrational anger subsided. He released the man and stepped away, folding his wings in to his body. They collapsed in a manner that tucked up neatly, and took less space than their full expansion did. Neat trick. Came with the territory.
“All this time I’ve been hunting halos and I’ve never seen one of you—wow. In your real form.” The man had dropped the gun on the floor. Now he shrugged his hands through his hair, and gestured as he exclaimed, “Christ, it’s amazing!”
“Christ is amazing. Me?” Cooper stepped closer. “Not so much. Now what did you just say you were hunting?”
“Ha-halos.”
“Halos?” He smashed his fist into the wall near Donovan’s head. The Sheetrock dusted. “Who the hell are you?”
“I—I already said—”
Cooper gripped him by the front of his polo shirt. The man jumped at the cold sting of glass flesh to his feeble mortal flesh.
“I’m a halo hunter!” he pleaded. “I’ve dozens of halos I’ve collected over the years.”
“Angel halos?”
“What other kinds are there?”
“Michael Donovan?” MD. The MD he’d been trying to get more information about from Eden Campbell. Well, well.
“Could you let me go now? My girlfriend gave me this shirt. Dude, you are cold.”
Dropping the man and stepping back, Cooper released his half form and wriggled his upper body as it took on human costume. It was scare tactics. A stupid move. He shouldn’t angel up for any mortal who pissed him off. But his privacy had been violated and he had been in a fine temper.
Gotta watch his temper.
His shirt had been sacrificed for the shift. Cooper slapped a palm against his biceps and shrugged off the final shiver of the change.
“That was incredible.”
Cooper winced. He was not a performing circus act. “Michael Donovan?”
The man nodded effusively.
“So you’re the MD I’ve been reading about online?”
“Maybe. I’m careful about my posts online. Usually code them so no one can track them.”
“There was mention of an MD in Eden Campbell’s posts to Cassandra Stevens.”
“You know Eden?”
Cooper shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“You’re honest. Eden is the one who told me you’d contacted her asking about me. She had no idea who you were, but the way you worded your post made her believe you knew angels were real. And now I understand why.” He reached behind his hip and Cooper clenched a fist. “Just getting my wallet.”
Michael produced a brown leather wallet and opened it before Cooper. He took out a folded paper and handed it over. “Take a look. I can’t believe it.”
With one eye on the man who had violated his sanctum, Cooper unfolded the paper. He swallowed down an oath at sight of the image. It looked like one of those fantasy paintings artists designed on the computer. But the most shocking thing? Blue glass body, and emerald-and-azure wings. And the sigil was exact.
“It’s me.”
“Yes! What you looked like just now, shifted and all. Eden Campbell painted that.”
“I don’t understand. How?”
“She’s a muse who dreams about angels. Never thought she’d be so spot on though. Wow. Just…wow. I’ve never experienced angelophany.”
“What the heck is that?”
“It’s you. Appearing before me.”
“I didn’t appear. You broke in. Big difference.”
“Sorry. The door wasn’t locked.” Donovan raked fingers through his hair. “What does an angel want with me? You’re Fallen, right?”
“Yes. According to Miss Campbell—”
“It’s missus now. She got married last month. To a, erm…” He scratched his jaw, dismissing the thought. “Right. Back to why you wanted to find me.”
“You have halos from angels,” Cooper said to the man who wiped the sweat from his brow. He still couldn’t get over the painting. It was him, all right. Dreams? And another muse? “How do you find them?”
“It’s difficult, but they’re all over the world if someone knows what they’re looking for. Buried in the earth. Stuck in an Alaskan iceberg. Shoved in a box sitting on the front lawn of a garage sale.”
“A garage sale?” Cooper gaped. That the one thing most sacred to him could be found by such a means. He gripped Donovan by the shirt. “Do you have mine?”
“I—I don’t know. It’s not as if I can match your sigil to it. Very striking by the way.” He glanced downward where Cooper’s sigil was impressed upon his abdomen. When not glowing it assumed the color of muddy tea. “I wouldn’t know it was your halo unless you held the thing and it glowed.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I’ve seen it happen.”
The man had seen an angel holding his halo? Wait. “I thought I was the first angel you’ve seen? Angelophany, and all.”
“Oh, you are. It’s complicated. Trust me.”
“Not even going to go there with the trust.”
Cooper laid the paper on the table and studied it further. She’d even got the red glass heart right. He shoved upright and turned on Donovan.
“Where are they?” Cooper asked. “I need to see them. All of them.”
“Not with me. I sure as hell am not going to carry them around in this city full of vampires.”
“You know about the vampires, too?”
“Hard not to. If you know anything about what’s up, you should know they’re after the halos. That’s why I’m here. Well, that, and I promised Eden I’d check you out.”
“How di
d you know I lived here? Have you been tracking me?” Cooper reached for his lower back. He hated that the vampires had a connection to him. “Are you allied with the vampires?”
“I am as far from allied with the vampires as a man can possibly be. At least when it comes to terms of engagement with the enemy. There are many ways to an alliance—”
“Is that so?” Cooper gripped the man’s chin and jerked his head aside to expose his neck. There, behind the high collar of his black shirt, two faint marks sat right over the jugular vein. “Seems to me you’re about as allied as a mortal can be. You’ve been bitten.”
“By my girlfriend. She’s a vamp.”
“And you’re not allied with them?” He shoved the man hard and his chair toppled. “What sort of lies are you telling me? Let me take a look—”
Cooper went to place his palm against the man’s forehead, but Donovan scrambled away. “Oh, I know how that one works, buddy. I don’t want you playing around inside my head. Just let me explain.”
He knew too much. Cooper couldn’t decide if that was an advantage or just plain wrong.
“I’m listening. Make it fast. Make it the truth.”
“It’s a long story, but my girlfriend recently escaped from the control of the vampire tribe Anakim. They reside here in Paris under the command of Antonio del Gado.”
That much Cooper knew was true. “Continue.”
“Vinny—my girlfriend—is on my side now, which is not the vampires’ side.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to, Grigori.”
Cooper dismissed the term with a wave of hand. He did not like the old term. It implied he’d Fallen for one purpose only—to fornicate with his muse. But if the mortal did not know that he wasn’t going to provide the complete rules and regulations of his kind.
“I’ve been collecting for a dozen years,” Donovan said. “Never ran into any weird shit. Just happy to pick up another halo here and there, you know? Then six months ago I meet Vinny. She knew where a halo was hidden in Versailles, and took me to it, but she also wanted me to get her away from del Gado’s control.”
