Lucca

by Karen Michelle Nutt

  She shouldn’t have been able to hear his voice, but the deep rumble reached her ears like a caress. Then he flashed her a sexy, wicked smile, both in invitation and in challenge. God, she wanted him. The realization floored her, but she pushed the desire back, forcing herself not to yearn for something she could never have.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gideon wanted to wretch, the bile actually making its way up his throat in an attempt to make an exit.

  Zaiden clasped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t look at it.”

  Don’t look at it he says. The gore plastered to the walls and table made it difficult not to look.

  “Concentrate,” Zaiden ordered, his voice a booming reminder of his ability to command.

  Gideon preferred the behind the scenes kind of life. That’s why he worked with computer graphics. He had a successful graphic art series going. It was dark and violent as most were, but they were just stories. It was the most death he dealt with in a long time. He’d been on a battlefield now and again through time, fought with the best of the Watchers, and held his own, but this... “They slaughtered him.”

  “Yes.” His hand gripped his shoulder. “I need to know who they are.”

  Gideon nodded. His gaze landed on the stove where the bloody handprint all but glowed like a neon sign. He’d start there. He cleared his mind and placed his hand on the stovetop.

  Flashes of Leroy, bloodied and trying to crawl away, his eyes betraying his fear or he should say one eye. The other eye was swollen shut. His arms were sliced as if trying to ward off blows.

  “Get it over with,” he rasped out a response. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. You used the Brugmansia on me. Don’t you think I’d spill my guts by now?” Beaten to a pulp, but Leroy hadn’t been broken. The smell of Brugmansia and blood permeated the air, but something like rotten eggs wafted on it, too. The images were hazy, which surprised Gideon when torture should have burned the impression clearly within the surrounding surfaces.

  The being inflicting the blows knew the Watcher should have talked, too. Why hadn’t Leroy talked? Was he immune to the Brugmansia? “Hmm…yes about that,” the being said.

  Gideon tried to focus on the being’s voice, to see the face. There was something odd about the resonance of his voice, an edge to it that spoke of someone in charge, but before he could pick up the impression a bright light flashed and Leroy exploded, flesh and bones spraying in every direction.

  “Holy—.” The curse lodged in Gideon’s throat as he gagged and backed away. His connection to the past broken. He leaned forward, gripping his knees and drawing in deep gulps of air.

  Zaiden stood with his arms crossed over his chest, giving him time to compose himself.

  After a moment, he stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He had to leave the bloody aftermath. His steps took him to the living room where the horror in the other room couldn’t intrude.

  He heard Zaiden’s booted steps and knew he followed close behind. The Guard of Judgment wanted to know who did this. He didn’t have a name. Hell, he didn’t have a face, but he sure in heck knew what did this to Leroy. The bright light had given it away and the fact scared the hell out of him.

  He turned to meet Zaiden’s gaze. His unearthly ice blue eyes a shade sharper, his patience a paper-thin step away from snapping. He was used to immediate results and Gideon was taking too long. “Well, did you see anything… useful?”

  “I don’t have a name.”

  Zaiden let a frustrated breath and rubbed a hand over his face.

  “But…”

  Zaiden’s gaze zeroed in on him once more. “Do you mind sharing your findings?”

  Gideon blinked at the icy authority in Zaiden’s tone and was glad he wasn’t the one he was looking for. “He died by Angel fire, a lightning strike.”

  “An Archangel did this?” Zaiden stiffened in automatic defense that Heaven would send Archangels to earth again. “What’s going on?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  After the tryouts were complete, everyone began to clear out with endless chatter of goodbyes and see you later.

  Lucca lounged in one of the back row seats, wondering what in the hell he was doing here waiting for a human to finish up so he could… What exactly? Court her, or as this century liked to say, hook up with her? How he hated the loose term. It made the honor of wooing a female sound cheap.

  Then what did he really know about human females? His mother died giving birth to him. His father, Arizul was one of the original Fallen. He raised him, if his brutal ways could be called such a thing. His father drummed into his head not to associate with humans.

  You are a superior being. Act like one. Don’t mingle with the mortals. His father’s words from long ago lashed out at him as if he sat next to him. Lucca shifted his weight and wiped his damp palms on the thighs of his jeans.

  Arizul did whatever it took to beat Lucca’s curiosity of humans out of his head. He was half human, too, but his father seemed to have forgotten he impregnated a human female.

  Arizul’s ruthless teachings were a regular happening in his home. “You must learn discipline.” His father’s booming voice would make him quake.

  They traveled and watched humans, entering the centuries from the Otherworld to observe, but his father began to become anxious as if he witnessed something in one of the points in time and he needed to change the outcome. The Watchers were forbidden to change history, but there were alternate outcomes to every event. He suspected his father tried to influence certain events, shimmering to each alternate outcome to make it happen.

  Of all the time slots, his father was obsessed with sixteenth century, London, not long before Shakespeare and Marlowe made a name for themselves. Arizul tested Lucca, but he didn’t know what he wanted of him. No matter how hard he tried to win his father’s approval, he failed. He was a disappointment to him. You’re weak. The words evoked feelings of failure even now.

  He closed his eyes, trying to close the door to his past, but once the door had been nudged, he couldn’t stop it from opening the rest of the way.

  Before his Awakening, when he was tall and lanky, a boy who had yet to grow into his height, Arizul would drag him into the seedier part of London where morals were left behind. Brothels lined the bank where the stench from the Thames smelled like raw sewage. Body snatchers were prevalent back then and lone strollers were easy targets. The money was good—if you brought a surgeon a good specimen.

  His father would make him watch these vile men murder for money, knowing they could have saved the poor bastard who staggered down the walk unaware of what lay in waiting for him.

  Lucca recalled his first night of training...

  His heart had pounded in his throat and he knew all he had to do was call out a warning and the man would be saved, but his father’s hand seized his shoulder, his grip so tight it almost brought him to his knees. He bit his lip, tasting blood as he forced himself to remain quiet.

  The two body snatchers were upon the man, bringing him down as if they meant to slaughter cattle. A flash of steel glinted in the moonlight. A cry of alarm was choked off as the blade bit into the victim’s neck, cutting back any further protests.

  Lucca turned away, retching. His father backhanded him for his insolence and told him he’d have to lick up the puke from the street if it happened a next time. All he could think was the next time. He’d have to witness more of the same useless deaths. His father never gave idle threats. He meant what he said. When you licked up enough of your bile, you learned to keep it down.

  Their little outings to the riverbank were meant to toughen him up. To belittle human life as nothing more than smashing a bug from time to time, but Arizul’s real test was yet to come.

  The bastard got off on inflicting pain, mental pain and physical. Lucca didn’t understand why his father went through the formalities of giving him a test. Why not just start the day with breakfast … beating … lunch … beating ... and so on.
Being virtually immortal, he healed fast with no lingering effects—at least not what anyone could see.

  His second test of endurance in the human realm was to make no contact verbally or physically, even if a human asked him a question. He was to walk away. He couldn’t use glamour like his father yet and hide from the masses. Nephilim didn’t mature until they hit puberty, which could be anywhere from ten years old to nineteen years of age. Wings would sprout from the nubs on the back. At birth, they looked like winged birthmarks, but as the Nephilim grew so did the nubs, looking more like bony growths. They were easily hidden until the Awakening. The Awakening involved three days of agony before the wings grew to their splendor. It took another few days to learn how to control the glamour and the ability to shift from human to angel.

  One particular test of endurance, his father forced upon him, stood out in his mind over the others. His father dragged him to town during market time. No matter how hard he tried to keep his gaze averted so not to strike up a conversation, something would ultimately draw his attention and he was doomed for a night of punishment, but this particular day had proved the worst day of his life.

  He saved a young female from being trampled by a horse. His instinct kicked in before he could rein it back. His quick reflexes had him sprinting. Even at eleven, he was larger than human males and stronger. He swept the girl into his arms, leaping to safety as dirt and debris hit them when the horse flew by.

  Lying sprawled on the ground, his gaze wavered over the girl in his hands. Reddish strands of hair haloed her freckled face and luminous green eyes stared up at him in awe. Her small fragile hand touched his cheek, the warmth of her fingertips a caress of kindness he had never felt before. She took his hand in her small one. “You’re hurt.”

  He looked down at the scrape on the top of his hand. It was nothing, it barely bled, but the girl was concerned for him. She raised his hand to her mouth and placed a kiss over the wound as if her caress would heal him. “Thank you, angel,” she whispered. Had she known he was one of the Nephilim? Before he could question her, the girl’s mother threw herself at him, praising him for his brave actions.

  He smiled, loving the way the woman fawned over him, but then his gaze found his father’s. The murderous expression creased Arizul’s brow and narrowed his eyes to slits. Lucca pushed away from the mother and ran.

  His father didn’t say anything on their trek home, but every step had been agony as he imagined what his father would do to him. As it turned out, his imagination hadn’t even begun to conjure up what his punishment would be.

  With his upper body stripped bare, his father made him face the wall. He clasped chains on his wrists and ankles that were bolted to the stone. The room was located beneath their living quarters where no one would hear his cries for help. His father whipped him until blood pooled at his feet and his throat turned raw from his screams. When his father released the chains, he thought it was over, his body going limp as he landed on his knees.

  “Get up.” His father’s cold voice commanded.

  He raised his tear stained eyes to look at him, his throat too sore to plead for mercy, not that it would help in anyway. His father never gave quarter.

  “Get up or I’ll yank you up by your hair, you sniveling half-human scum. Crying and screaming like a human baby. You disgust me.”

  Lucca grabbed hold of the chains dangling at his cheek. He pulled himself up with what strength he could fathom. Once on his feet, his father slammed him against the wall in a chokehold. The pain of his raw back scraping against the stone nearly made him lose consciousness. He wished it had.

  Arizul secured his limbs again, before backing away, waiting. Finally, Lucca had the courage to look at his father, catching sight of the whip in his father’s hand. It wasn’t over. His stomach lurched, making him want to retch, but he swallowed the bile. If he looked weak, if he screamed, he feared the beating would never end. The whip came down again and again, ripping away skin, but he bit his lip to keep from screaming. Finally, blackness took hold.

  Three days later, the Watchers’ physician told him he barely survived. Until then, he didn’t know the Fallen could be killed.

  His father never took him to town again and the punishments were never as severe. Lucca suspected one of the Watchers threatened his father to keep him in line.

  Lucca learned to keep out of his father’s way, finding ways to help out at the Watcher’s stronghold. He kept to his own kind too, staying clear of humans.

  His Awakening happened in his eighteenth year. He thought maybe it would never happen, that his father had somehow damaged him, but when he shifted, his wingspread surpassed most Nephilim’s length. The feathers were dark, shades of gray and a midnight blue.

  He worked hard and became a warrior for his own self worth and the ability to at least put up a good fight if his father came at him. In battle, he learned humans were irrational beings as his father had always claimed. Their choices would sooner send them running head long into doom than save them. He didn’t see the point in befriending them when their lives were like a brief whisper of time, but then he met Christopher Marlowe.

  Lucca closed his eyes, the past overwhelming him with emotions he thought he put to rest. Why was he dredging it up now? He inhaled deeply and nearly gagged. The air around him smelled foul as if his thoughts conjured his father’s vileness. His eyes snapped open, looking toward the shadows, half expecting to see his father standing there.

  He shook his head. “I cannot do this.” He rose to his feet bent on fleeing the Amphitheater and leaving Juliet Romeo to her own devices, but he spotted her at the foot of the stage. She turned and her gaze found his. Those lovely green eyes held him still as if pleading for him not to go. Her hair bounced as she walked toward him, the sun-kissed strands shimmering like burnished copper from the light illuminating from the lamplights positioned behind them.

  There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember… The quote from Hamlet trailed away like a whisper. “The young girl.” He realized why his thoughts had wavered to the past. Juliet reminded him of the young girl he’d saved. A young girl, who kissed him and called him angel. He knew Juliet couldn’t be the child, but her coloring, her gentle touches had triggered the memory of a sweet girl’s caress.

  Juliet took the steps to the top row, where he stood like a gaping fool. Rosemary, mint, and sweet sunshine filled his senses, cleansing the negative thoughts from his mind.

  “I’m about finished here. I just have to pack up a few things. Do you still want to wait?”

  “As long as it takes,” he heard himself say and wondered what possessed him to say those words. He needed to go before this—whatever this was sprouting between them—took root and flourished. It would only end badly. It was better to stop it now before she ended up hurt.

  Her lips spread into a smile lighting her eyes to softer green.

  God, she had a beautiful smile. His hand went to his chest where his heart truly beat for the first time.

  “Good. I’ll make it quick.” She turned and headed down the stairs, her steps a little lighter than before.

  “You’re an eegit,” he drew out a breath of disgust for his lack of will when it came to Juliet, but he waited there like an obedient puppy until she motioned she was ready to go.

  Juliet locked up the gates to the amphitheater. Her long graceful fingers pushed her jacket sleeve up her arm so she could glance at her watch. “It’s later than I thought.”

  He didn’t want her to go home yet. Panic assailed him, a rush causing his chest to tighten. “We’ll have dinner, that’s it,” he hurried to say, ignoring all his earlier thoughts of ending this. She’s human. You don’t like humans. Remember, you spent lifetimes perfecting your dislike. He kept reminding himself of the fact, but every time his gaze met Juliet’s, the conviction fell short.

  “Just dinner,” she said, as if to convince herself their newfound friendship wouldn’t go any farther, too. “I promised
Owen’s babysitter I’d be home no later than eleven thirty.”

  His lips curved. “I won’t hold you hostage.” Before he could suggest a place for dinner, she volunteered.

  “There’s a restaurant in walking distance from here. It’s small, but the food’s really good.”

  He didn’t care as long as she didn’t go home. “Lead the way, milady.” He swept his hand in front of him.

  Her gaze riveted to his, her brows furrowing. Before he could ask what was the matter, the puckering between her brows smoothed away and she smiled. “It’s this way.”

  They walked side by side down Main Street. Her hands were shoved in her jacket. Her long fine strands flowed loose behind her as the light breeze teased them. Old buildings from the early twentieth century lined either side of the street, renovated for the new businesses.

  “How did you become interested in Shakespeare?”

  “Hmm?” It took him a moment to realize she asked him a question. “How did… I like to read.” He shrugged. He couldn’t tell her he met Will in a tavern, scribbling on whatever he could get his hands on. The man’s fingernails were black from the ink and his clothes a bit disheveled, but the light in his eyes told him the man had a real talent. All he needed was a little push in the right direction.

  “You like to read. That’s it?” Her finely shaped brow arched.

  Would she think him a pansy if he told her the truth? Probably, but what the hell. “Wil… Shakespeare’s words were like magic to me, an incantation to transport my tired soul to another realm.”

  She glanced at him then and he turned away, feeling like an eegit for revealing something he never shared with anyone. If he were prone to blushing, his skin would have turned every shade of red.

  “That’s exactly how I feel.” Her voice lowered, thick with emotion. He looked at her now, meeting her beautiful eyes. He had the urge to pull her against him, wrap his arms around her, and never let her go. He cleared his throat and shook his head, trying madly to clear his thoughts of such a ridiculous notion. “What about you, Miss Romeo? How did Shakespeare come to be a part of your life? Hmm? Let me guess.” He tapped his chin for effect. “Your parents were Shakespeare fanatics and their enthusiasm spilled over to you.”