She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. Warmth blasted her, from the open log fire in the hearth and from the human patrons who were blithely unaware of what creature had just entered their haven.
I’d do anything to join their oblivious ranks.
But that was never going to happen. Despite her best intentions, Sakarbaal’s cold words invaded her mind.
This demon—angel, whatever you wish to call it, exists only in order to wipe dhampirs from the face of the Earth.
But that was only Sakarbaal’s truth. She no longer believed everything she was told without cold, hard evidence. And warped memories from an ancient vampire didn’t count.
And then, at the back of the inn at an intimate, candlelit table for two, she saw Azrael. Her breast compressed, as if a fist squeezed her heart, and her throat constricted in unbearable sorrow.
She’d give anything if only she could prolong their time together.
He looked up, and the rest of the world faded into insignificance. Even from this distance an aura of leashed power radiated from him. Despite being tucked into a cozy corner, and the black, casual shirt he wore, nothing could disguise the inherent magnetism his presence invoked.
As she made her way across the floor, she was aware of the glances he attracted. The crackle of raw sexuality in the air, like an approaching summer storm, and that he appeared entirely oblivious to. It was easy to believe immortal blood ran in his veins, and right now she didn’t care whether that blood was from an angel or demon.
She would never be responsible for spilling it.
He stood up as she reached their table and his chivalrous gesture tugged at her heart.
“Hi.” She smiled at him, their gazes meshed, and an unaccountable shiver prickled along her spine.
He smiled back, helped her with her coat and waited until she sat, but still the eerie chill flickered over her flesh like an artic caress. Had she imagined that iced expression in his eyes? The odd sense of disconnectedness in the smile he’d offered her?
“You look edible by candlelight.” His husky whisper sank into her senses but instead of delight at his compliment unease curled deep in her belly. He’d said something similar to her only yesterday. But yesterday his glance had been warm, his words a sensual promise.
Tonight, his words gave the impression of a threat.
Stop. She was imagining things. Letting Sakarbaal’s accusations poison her mind. There was nothing odd or strange about Azrael’s behavior. She was seeing shadows, but they were of Sakarbaal’s creation and had nothing to do with the truth that was Azrael.
“I’ll remind you of that later.” They had one last night together and she was going to make a million memories, before it all crashed down. She planned on waiting until after they’d made love, when they were in each other’s arms, before she told him of the danger. Before she warned him that his life had to irrevocably change if he wanted to survive.
“I’ll look forward to it.” Again, he smiled at her as he picked up the menu, and again ice invaded her veins, as though he sent a subliminal message that her subconscious couldn’t decipher.
Despair stabbed through her. Sakarbaal had managed to tarnish her final hours with Azrael.
She picked up her own menu and pretended an interest in the dishes that she no longer felt.
“How has your day been?” She’d never asked him about his day before. It was too intimate. But she would never again have the chance to ask, so what did it matter?
If he was surprised by her question, he didn’t show it. “Same as usual. Scraping the dredges from the gutters and sending them into their own personal version of hell.”
Azrael
Rowan kept her gaze fixed on the menu, as if it was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. He fought the urge to reach across the table and snatch the damn thing from her hand.
She sat there in her soft forest green sweater, her gorgeous black hair curling over her shoulders. Her long lashes concealed her eyes and a pale rose blush highlighted her aristocratic cheekbones. If Nico had told him Rowan was descended from a demon, he could believe it. Her beauty was ethereal, her presence addictive, and to learn she had immortal blood in her veins wouldn’t surprise him at all.
But a dhampir?
And still he hadn’t scanned her aura. It was the first thing he’d intended to do tonight, but as he’d watched her cross the room towards him, and seen how she turned every man’s head, something ugly and primal had clawed through his gut.
She’s mine.
He’d discover her truth when she lay in his arms, replete and exhausted. And if she was guilty, he’d deal with her.
No problem.
“Are you in law enforcement?” She continued to scrutinize the menu, as though her question was a casual enquiry and nothing more. What more could it be? Except she’d never shown any interest in what he did when he wasn’t with her.
“Something like that.” If she’d asked him yesterday, what would he have told her? But she hadn’t. She’d asked tonight, and tonight ambiguity shadowed every word she uttered. “I imagine our work runs along similar lines.” Lies.
He didn’t give a shit whether her job entailed espionage or assassination of political opponents. She could be involved in an organized crime syndicate for all he cared.
Anything. So long as she was oblivious of everything connected with Sakarbaal.
She glanced up at him. Tension thrummed in the air between them, as if they balanced on the edge of a precipice and one false word would send them both tumbling into the abyss.
“I hope not.” She sounded faintly horrified by the notion.
He leaned across the table, unsure whether he wanted to take her hand and comfort her or grip her throat and throttle the truth from her.
“There’s something you should know about me, Rowan.” It wasn’t his imagination. Wariness cloaked her like a second skin. “Those who cross me don’t survive long.”
Except Sakarbaal. His proverbial thorn.
The tip of her tongue moistened her lips and the sight mesmerized him.
“Politically or literally?”
He dragged his attention back to her, the woman who had countered his oblique threat with a direct confrontation. But her gaze held no aggression. Only an indefinable aura of sadness that made him want to tear Nico limb from limb for daring to suggest she was anything but an innocent.
“Literally.” He couldn’t help himself and threaded his fingers through hers. She was warm, vital. Alive. “You told me yesterday the world would be a far more dangerous place without you.” He smiled, but it was an effort because he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her until the hard rock lodged in his chest crumbled. “Same here.”
Her fingers tightened around his and she leaned towards him until their breaths mingled. “Azrael.” Her voice was barely a whisper. He’d never heard anything so seductive in his life. “There are things I need to tell you about my life. Things you need to know about me.”
Relief washed through him, loosening the constriction in his chest. If she intended to confide her secrets, then they weren’t the ones he suspected.
“Tell me later.” He brushed his lips against her knuckles. “Room service?”
Her smile was all the answer he needed, and within moments he’d made the necessary arrangements. As they climbed the worn timber stairs, he wound his arm around her waist. Tonight, after she’d told him of her life, there would be nothing left to discover, and her fascination would dim.
The Tudor theme continued into the bedroom with carved oak furniture and an elaborate four-poster bed. She tossed her coat onto the brocade bed quilt and then turned and flung her arms around his neck.
“I missed you.” She rose onto her toes and kissed him, her body molding his in that entrancing way that invaded his dreams. “I’ll always miss you.”
He laughed against her mouth and pulled back just enough so he could push her bag out of the way. It was a lot
larger than the usual ones she carried, a moss green leather monster, but as his fingers closed around it an improbable electrical current jolted his hand.
Instinctively he snatched his hand away. But the aftereffects lingered, like a poisonous echo in his blood. An insistent glimmer of cold, inhuman evil.
“Let me dump this.” She untangled her limbs from around his neck and slung her bag onto the floor. Dark energy rippled from the innocuous bag, and dread curled through his gut.
Buried memories clawed through his mind, taking him back to a time of nightmare and horror. When Gabe had lost his sanity over the senseless death of Eleni and become enmeshed within the inhospitable Voids, a labyrinth construct that existed within the vast expanse of Dark Matter. He and fellow archangels Mephisto and Zadkiel had searched that unimaginable hell for Gabe. The hell that was the dominion of the creatures known as the Guardians.
Even after all these millennia he couldn’t forget the way the Voids had eaten into the fabric of his being. How it had grasped with acidic greed onto his wings. He’d been in the Voids only a fraction of the time that Gabe had and his injuries, unlike Gabe’s, had eventually healed with no lasting physical scars.
But now the psychic lacerations, that until seconds ago had remained latent, sizzled with fiery recognition.
Something in her bag originates from that cursed place.
He pulled away from her and grabbed her bag by its shoulder strap. No reaction. Was he going fucking insane?
“What are you doing?” There was a thread of alarm in her voice as she tried to pull her bag from him. He swung it out of her reach and ripped open the zipper. “Azrael, don’t.”
He turned it upside down and an astonishing volume of stuff tumbled onto the floor. What the fuck had she intended to do when she’d left him tonight, leave the country?
“God, Azrael.” She sounded more irritated than alarmed now, as she sank to her knees and began to gather up various items of underwear and toiletries. “Did you have to?”
He crouched beside her. Like a magnet his hand reached out, shoved aside an e-reader and wallet and discovered the source.
A slender tube-shaped medical case.
She made a grab for it, but he beat her to it. Whatever the case contained seeped evil into his palm. His grip tightened. He wouldn’t succumb to the overwhelming urge to fling the tube across the room.
It could all be a terrible mistake. She had no idea what she carried. No idea of the effect it had on his archangelic biology.
No clue that she had in her possession a weapon that could, theoretically at least, render him incapable of deflecting a killing blow.
Finally, he met her gaze. Anxiety clouded those deceptively innocent eyes and she reached out her hand. “Let me put that away. It’s quite fragile.”
“What is it?” He flicked open the clasp with his thumb but didn’t take his eyes from her.
“It’s—medication.” She offered him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She might just as well have prefaced her words with this is a lie. “Not mine,” she added hastily as if she thought that might improve the situation. “I’m just looking after it for someone.”
“Who?” He tipped the phial from its case and his gut knotted at the shimmering dark liquid—gas? —that swirled inside the glass.
His stubborn refusal to face the truth fractured. This had originated in the Voids. And only the Guardians could have procured it.
“The Godfather, remember?” She curled her fingers around his arm, as though she wanted to comfort him rather than kill him.
“This is connected to your family business?”
“Yes.” Relief vibrated through that one small word, like he’d offered her an easy way out. “I’m not sure what it is but I think it’s some kind of biological pathogen.”
For him, the contents of this phial amounted to biochemical warfare. He didn’t know for sure what would happen if it was plunged into his bloodstream, but he doubted he’d be able to fight off Sakarbaal.
He might not even be able to teleport. None of them had been able to use any of their normal abilities while in the Voids.
“Ever heard of the Enclave of the Phoenix?”
She recoiled as if he’d physically threatened her. She’d heard of it all right.
“How do you know of it?” Her voice was hushed, and dread licked through every word.
His blood thundered against his temples, filling his head. The erratic hammer of his heart against his ribs jarred every bone in his body. And Rowan’s tragic expression was all he could see as she gazed at him as though he had just ripped out her soul.
Against all his survival instincts, he’d trusted her. And she had betrayed him in the worst possible way. To hell with scanning her aura. There was only one way to discover her truth. But even now he couldn’t invade the depths of her brain as she deserved, and instead he merely grazed the edge of her mind.
A searing fog of isolation swamped him, threatening to suffocate, to overwhelm. But even as he recoiled, staggered by the depth of darkness that held her in its thrall, the overpowering stench of blood flooded his senses.
The vision smashed through his mind. Sakarbaal, looming. Crimson blood flowing.
Rowan sucking the blood of the most ancient vampire of all.
Chapter 20
Rowan
Rowan pushed herself to her feet and staggered back until she came up against the wall. Azrael stood too, a savage gleam in his eyes, and all her desperate excuses vanished like sand through a bottomless hourglass.
“Answer my question.” There was a deadly lack of emotion in his voice that sent skeletal fingers scraping along her spine. “What do you know of the Enclave?”
A stranger stood before her. There was no hint of the man she’d spent the best two weeks of her life with. No glimmer of the exciting, tender lover she’d lost her head over. His expression could have been carved from marble. Even the gleam in his eyes had died, leaving them eerily blank.
Was this a mask? Or was this the true Azrael? Had she fallen for a cruel façade, for someone who simply didn’t exist?
She had the overwhelming urge to run, to hide, but instead she straightened her shoulders and stepped away from the comforting solidarity of the wall.
“I’ve lived at the Enclave all my life.”
A ripple of emotion distorted his carved features and her last shreds of self-delusion crumbled. Revulsion pulsed from him as destructive as sulfuric acid, corroding the air she dragged into her lungs.
He knew what she was. Had always known. And now, when he no longer needed to keep up the pretense, he showed his true feelings. Deep inside, a part of her heart withered and died.
“And you’re Sakarbaal’s creature.”
His contempt was a frigid slap in the face. Never had she thought four words could wield such destructive power. But they thundered in her head. Worse, far worse, than anything she had imagined.
Sakarbaal’s creature. Azrael made her sound unclean, foul. And while she hated her tainted blood and up until now had relied on the Enclave for her livelihood she wasn’t, and had never been, Sakarbaal’s creature.
“No.” Her voice was strong although she had no idea how. “I’m not his creature, Azrael.” What point was there in pretending ignorance? “Angel of Death.”
Fury glinted in his eyes, but he didn’t ask what the hell she meant, and her last fragile hope fell to dust. Instead he took another step towards her and for the first time a sliver of fear uncoiled.
Sakarbaal had told her Azrael intended to kill her. But even now, even when everything she’d believed about him had been a lie, she couldn’t believe he’d end her life.
“How can you be anything else?” His whisper burned her skin. “When you drink his blood like a mindless addict?”
How could he know of that? It had happened only once. Yet he made it sound as if she constantly sucked down the vampire lord’s blood.
“I don’t—”
�
�Dhampir.”
The rest of her denial lodged in her throat. It was one thing to discover he had always known her secret. But it was nothing compared to hearing him spit the word, like a curse, in her face.
Her battered heart shriveled. She’d never had a future with him. But the bitter truth was—she’d never had anything with him. Everything had existed only in her mind.
Years of training came to her rescue. She couldn’t lie with conviction, but she could shove her wounded feelings into a dark corner of her psyche. She might not be able to defeat the angel of death, but she’d rather die trying than die slowly, bit by bit, as he verbally ripped her to shreds.
Nine hundred years ago he had slaughtered unarmed dhampirs in his quest to rid them from the world. That might make him a hunter, but it didn’t make him a warrior.
She smothered the memories of the last two weeks. There was no time to mourn their sordid death. They had never been anything but illusions. The truth stood before her, and it was neither noble nor heroic. Maybe he was a demon, after all. Because surely angels weren’t evil.
“Murderer.” Contempt dripped from every syllable, but she didn’t know if the scorn was directed at him, or herself for being so easily used.
He brandished the phial before her eyes. “What does this make you?”
A fool. That’s what it made her. For believing him innocent of Sakarbaal’s accusations. But now she knew the truth, would she plunge the unholy poison into Azrael’s blood? Could she see him diminish before her eyes, betray what they had shared and offer him up to the vampire lord?
We shared nothing. Yet the thought of immobilizing him for Sakarbaal turned her stomach.
She’d take that tragic knowledge with her to the grave.
“My people deserve vengeance for what you did to them.”
Nemesis: Paranormal Angel Romance (Realm of Flame and Shadow Book 2) Page 14
