“Has Flint given the Montgomery pack the same permission that I gave the rougarou?” she asked. “Permission to offer themselves to the Earth Angel’s army, but still be allowed to return to the pack if refused?”
“No.” Sage’s eyes darkened. “Flint is a believer in the old ways. He also believes that the Montgomery wolves will be most useful against the demons from our compound—not from Avalon. Anyone who leaves the pack for Avalon will not be welcomed back.”
“Yet here you are, away from your pack and helping Noah on his quest.”
“What can I say?” Sage shrugged, giving Leia a small smile. “I get special privileges for being his favorite sister.”
“You’re his only sister,” Noah cut in.
Sage flashed him a grin. “Which naturally makes me his favorite.”
From the way the two of them acted around each other, it seemed more like Noah was Sage’s brother—not big, scary Flint.
“I respect your independence,” Leia decided. “Especially because you’ve used that independence to help a friend instead of hiding inside the Montgomery compound. The rougarou may not be aligned with the Montgomery pack—and this doesn’t change that—but we are allied with you Sage Montgomery. And Noah and Raven, of course.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved by her decision.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “The three of you have my permission to remain in New Orleans for as long as you wish. The punishment for any rougarou who tries to hurt you will be death. This will hold after you leave New Orleans, unless our alliance is broken. I’ll send word to the rest of the rougarou once you leave.”
She removed a key from her pocket and unlocked our handcuffs. Once freed, I flexed my fingers a few times, rubbing the place on my wrists where the metal had cut into my skin.
The air was still tense between the rest of the rougarou and the three of us, but it was a massive relief to know they weren’t going to attack again.
“So,” I said with a smile, hoping to lighten up the situation. “How long until this truth potion wears off?”
“I’ll give you the antidote pills as a token of my goodwill,” Leia decided. “I’ll also give you back these.” She removed the cloaking rings from her fingers and handed them back to Noah and Sage. “You’ll likely be relieved to know that there’s a cloaking spell around this bar, so whoever you’re hiding from wouldn’t have been able to track you while your rings were off.”
That was a huge relief, seeing as they’d snatched us while we’d been making a run from Azazel.
Her lackey—which was how I was thinking of Jack, the big rougarou who kept retrieving the truth potion for us—went behind the bar again. He returned with two antidote pills and handed them to us.
I took mine immediately, chewing the chalky pink tablet and swallowing it down. Noah did the same. I wasn’t sure if the relief I felt once the tablets were in our systems was his or mine. I think it was a mix of both.
“I’m glad we had this talk tonight,” Leia said as she walked us to the door. “I’m happy we came to an understanding before any drastic measures were taken. And I truly wish you the best of luck in your quest for Avalon.”
With that, she sent us on our way, not allowing us to ask her or the rest of the rougarou pack any more questions.
Raven
The three of us didn’t speak as we hurried from the supernatural bar back to the hotel. I think we just wanted to get back as quickly as possible, lest some other unknown supernatural threat emerge and threaten our lives tonight.
Luckily there were no signs of Azazel, and we made it back safely.
The moment we shut the door to our suite, Noah turned to me with fire blazing in his eyes. “Now you can finally answer my question,” he said with so much anger that it seemed like he was about to explode then and there.
I stepped back in surprise. It seemed like forever since the rougarou had snatched us, but I knew exactly what question he was referring to. The memory of it flashed through my mind—the question he’d asked after we’d slain Joe the demon.
He wanted to know what I was thinking by walking off with Joe instead of letting him handle the situation his way.
“The demons clearly want me for a reason, and they’re able to sniff me out of a crowd—even after I drank the cloaking potion.” I held his gaze, not willing to show any doubt regarding my plan. If I did, he’d reject it in a heartbeat. Well, he’d likely reject my plan in a heartbeat no matter what, but if I were confident about it, maybe he’d give it some consideration later. “We should use this knowledge to our advantage and use me as bait.”
Noah blinked a few times and stared at me, as if what I’d said was absurd. “Absolutely not,” he said, the decision sounding final.
“Why not?” I asked. “It worked tonight.”
“Because it puts you at more risk than necessary,” he said. “Sage and I hunted demons just fine without you. We didn’t need bait before, so we certainly don’t need you to act as bait now.”
We all remained standing in the center of the living room, way too worked up from everything that had just happened to sit down. At some point while Noah and I were talking, Sage must have turned on the electronic fireplace. As it crackled and burned, it reflected the tension sizzling in the air between us.
“I know that you were fine hunting demons without me,” I said. “You’ve only reminded me a gazillion times. But compared to the other times you’ve hunted demons, did this hunt go faster or slower?”
“There was no difference,” Noah said.
At the same time Sage said, “Faster. Definitely faster.”
I turned to Sage, trusting her more than Noah in this instance. “Do you think using me as bait made the hunt tonight go faster?” I asked. “Or was it just a coincidence?”
She looked at Noah, guilt crossing her features. I sort of got it—they were hunting partners. She met him before she met me, so her loyalty was to him. She didn’t want to say anything that might upset him.
But a faster hunt meant I could get to Avalon sooner, and therefore save my mom sooner. I didn’t like upsetting Noah, but my mom’s life came first. My desperation to save her was so strong that I could practically feel it coming off my body in waves. If acting as bait helped the hunt, I needed them to let me keep doing it. I needed them to help me save my mom.
“It was faster because of you,” Noah admitted, running his hand through his hair as if he couldn’t believe he was giving in.
I stilled, shocked that he’d given in, too. I’d expected a big, blow up fight—not for him to say I was right. It was almost like I’d manifested my desires onto him—again.
Maybe this manifesting thing wasn’t as crazy as I’d always thought.
“How much faster?” I asked.
Immediately afterward, I thought, Please, answer honestly. I tried to manifest my desire for him to answer honestly, because hey, why not? Manifesting seemed to be on my side so far. I might as well go with what worked.
“We always have to wait for the demon to leave a public area—this can take anywhere from thirty minutes to hours,” he said. “A few times, we’ve lost demons while they were in the crowd. Then we had to go back to the witch in that city to do another tracking spell to find the demon again. That can put us back by a day, sometimes more. Three times, we lost the demon completely.”
“So we have to use me as bait,” I said. “That way, we’ll never lose the demons. They’ll come right to us. Well, to me. All we have to do is let the demons lure us away, like we did tonight. They’ll think they have the upper hand. Then we’ll catch them off guard and attack.”
“The demon tonight lured us straight to the liaison spot he had with Azazel,” Noah said. “If we didn’t have that potion Amber made us, we would have been toast.”
His words echoed in the air, and the three of us didn’t say a word. Because Noah was right. Since none of us were Nephilim, none of us could kill Azazel.
We needed t
o avoid running into the greater demon again.
“How does teleporting work?” I asked. “Can Azazel teleport anywhere he wants?”
If he could, that was going to make this extra tricky.
“All I know about teleporting is how the witches do it,” Sage said. “But it should be the same thing. They can only teleport someplace they’ve seen before. Which means they need to have been there before, or at least seen a picture.”
“Perfect,” I said. “So the demons clearly have ‘drop off’ spots where Azazel knows to expect them with the human they’ve collected. Places Azazel has seen, since he teleports in.”
“That makes sense.” Sage nodded. “But how did Azazel know to be there at the right time?”
“I don’t know.” I paused, thinking back to everything that had happened before the attack. “Joe fiddled with his smart watch before we went inside the second alley. Maybe he sent Azazel a message?”
“I noticed that too,” she said. “That could be it. Did you notice Eli on his phone or watch before he pulled you into the alley in Santa Monica?”
“I was in the bathroom before he pulled me into the alley,” I said. “So no, I didn’t. But he definitely had a phone on him. I saw him looking at it at the bar.”
Sage pressed her lips together, as if thinking it over. “It’s hard to picture demons using cell phones,” she finally said. “But we use them on our hunts, so it’s possible. And I don’t have any other ideas.” She shrugged and turned to Noah. “What do you think?” she asked him.
“I guess it’s possible,” he said. “Especially since as far as I’m aware, demons aren’t telepathic.”
“This actually works perfectly with my plan,” I said. “Since the demons have arranged meeting spots with Azazel, we’ll bring them to a private place to fight on our terms—not on theirs.”
“And once Azazel realizes his demon scout is missing, it’ll be too late for him to track the scout, because the scout will be dead.” Sage gave me a high five, and for the first time, it truly felt like we were a team. “I love this plan. It’s going to make our hunts so much more efficient.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, thrilled to have finally contributed and have it be appreciated. Then I turned back to Noah, hoping he agreed. “What do you think?”
“I don’t like putting you straight into the line of fire,” he said. “But you need to get to Avalon as quickly as possible, and I can’t deny that this plan will make our hunt go faster. So I’ll agree… as long as you agree to learn basic defense skills.”
“Really?” I asked, shocked.
“Do I strike you as the type to say things I don’t mean?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But a few days ago, you said I didn’t have time to learn self defense skills because we had to focus on the hunt.”
“A few days ago, I figured you would stay back where the demons couldn’t see you while Sage and I did the hunting,” he said. “Plus, the Voodoo Queen only gets to her store after sunset. Which means we’ll have all day tomorrow to start basic training—and an entire private patio at our disposal to train on. If you’re up for it, of course.”
I glanced at the massive patio attached to our room, which looked out over the glowing New Orleans skyline. It was the perfect place for training. It would be just like those montage scenes I loved in movies.
“Of course I’m up for it,” I said. “Consider me your new Padawan.”
“My new what?” He tilted his head, confused.
Right—Noah was beyond behind on pop culture. I should have realized he would miss the Star Wars reference.
“Teach me everything you know,” I said instead.
“We’ll start with the basics.” He smiled for what felt like the first time since we’d gotten to New Orleans. “The skills you’ll need to stay alive until Sage or I can take over in a fight. Not that it’ll take me long to jump in—but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“You mean it’s better to be safe than dead,” I said.
He winced when I said the word dead, like the thought of anything happening to me pained him. “That’s not going to happen,” he promised. “You might be making it more difficult by volunteering as bait, but you’re going to survive this hunt and get to Avalon. I’m seeing to that myself.”
The whole time we’d been talking, we’d both been inching closer and closer toward each other. Now he stood straight in front of me, so close we were nearly touching.
My eyes instinctively went to his lips, and I thought back to when he’d kissed me. So much had happened since then with the rougarou, but that kiss felt as fresh as ever.
I wanted him to kiss me again.
From the way he was staring down at me, with heat blazing in his eyes, I had a feeling he was thinking the exact same thing.
“All right then.” Sage cleared her throat, reminding us that she was still there. “I’m glad that’s all settled.”
I stepped back from Noah, my cheeks flushing in embarrassment. What had come over me? It was like he’d cast some kind of spell over me. Or made me drink a love potion.
Except that from what Sage had taught me about potions, love potions didn’t exist. There were rare, complicated potions to make people fall out of love, but it was impossible to make anyone fall in love.
Not that I was in love with Noah. I just met him. Plus, we could never be together because of the whole wolf imprinting and mating thing.
This was a crush. That was all.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that, I’d eventually believe it.
“I guess we should get ready for bed,” I said, forcing myself to stop thinking about whatever my feelings were for Noah. “Since we have a long day ahead tomorrow, with me learning how to fight and all.”
“No!” Sage said suddenly. “I mean, first I need to shower.” She pointed to the bedroom door and started walking toward it, her eyes dancing in amusement.
“Didn’t you just shower a few hours ago?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “But now I stink of rougarou.” She made a big show of taking a deep breath, smelling herself, and crinkling her nose in disgust. “I’m not going to bed without showering first.”
I glared at her, since what she was doing was obvious.
She hadn’t forgotten that I’d told her about Noah kissing me to make Joe the demon back off, and she was making an excuse to give us space to talk alone.
I hated her and loved her for it at the same time.
Because the easiest thing to do was to pretend the kiss didn’t happen. I could push my feelings for Noah aside, and we could continue on exactly as we’d been—barely tolerating each other and eager to get to Avalon so we could go our separate ways.
That would be the smart thing to do, since I’d never be the one for him. It was what I should do.
But that was easier said than done… especially now that Sage had disappeared into the bathroom faster than I could blink, leaving Noah and me alone.
Raven
“So…” I looked everywhere but at Noah, unsure where to start.
“So.” Was that… amusement I heard in his tone? It couldn’t be.
But when I forced myself to get a grip and look at him, he most definitely looked amused.
“What?” I asked.
He tilted his head in confusion. Mock confusion. “I didn’t say anything,” he said.
I paced around the room, wishing Sage hadn’t left us alone.
Because this was worse than I’d thought it would be. He was acting like the kiss hadn’t happened at all.
Wasn’t that exactly what I’d hoped he would do only seconds earlier?
Except it wasn’t what I really hoped he would do. Because I couldn’t pretend that kiss hadn’t happened. If I tried, I was just going to replay it over and over again in my mind, wondering if he’d been affected like I had.
If we didn’t talk about it, I wasn’t going to be able to focus on the most important thing I needed to concen
trate on right now—training to make sure I didn’t get killed. Which meant we had to talk about it. I could literally die if we didn’t.
And since he clearly wasn’t going to bring it up, I supposed it was on me.
“So… what was that about at the bar?” I asked, figuring it was best to just be out with it.
“What was what about at the bar?” He walked over to the big armchair and stretched out on it, clearly enjoying this.
Ugh. He was going to make me say it out loud.
I stayed standing, too wound up to sit. “You kissed me,” I said, looking at him straight on. “Why?”
“That demon had his eye on you,” he said simply. “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you and touching you. He needed to know that you weren’t his for the taking.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And kissing me was the best way to do that?”
“What are you getting at?” His eyes were playful, and I couldn’t help feeling like he was toying with me. Again.
Hadn’t I already told him not to toy with me?
“What I’m getting at is that you didn’t have to kiss me to get the demon to back off.” I threw my hands down to my sides, annoyed that he was being so dense about this. “There had to have been other ways to do it.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But my way worked.”
How was he remaining so calm, when just thinking about the kiss made me turn into a bumbling idiot?
“That’s not the point.” I tried to get a grip on myself, but it was impossible when he was looking at me with so much fire in his eyes—like he wanted to kiss me again.
Why was it that whenever he looked at me like that, I was knocked completely speechless?
“So enlighten me, Raven,” he said, still sounding as amused as ever. “What is your point?”
“My point is that you can’t just go around kissing me like that.” I crossed my arms, determined to stand my ground. “It’s not fair.”
“Fair?” He raised an eyebrow. “I was doing my job—keeping you safe from a demon. We all have parts to play in this hunt, Raven. Mine is to keep you safe. And to vanquish the demons, of course.” He flipped his hair away from his eyes, as if killing demons was the most natural thing in the world to him. “You’re still alive, so obviously tonight, I did my job right.”
The Angel Hunt Page 9
