Darkest Heart

by Juliette Cross

“You shouldn’t have given me your essence.”

  A thread of fear trembled in her voice. That was interesting. Quirking a brow at her, I watched the anxiety tighten her expression.

  “It was to help you sleep. Nothing more.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Demon essence can be dangerous.”

  With a scoff, I assured her. “Yeah. I know. But I only gave you the compulsion to sleep.”

  I placed a hand on her hip and squeezed lightly to get her attention. It worked.

  “What was that nightmare about?”

  Closing her eyes on a sigh, she whispered, “It was nothing.”

  “Right.” I stood and fetched a bottle of water from the fridge, twisting the cap off and handing it over to her. “I thought you said you didn’t lie.”

  She took the water and sat up, gulping it down before answering.

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Uh-huh.” Taking my seat in the chair, I studied her carefully. “That nightmare was a memory. Not just a dream.”

  A sharp look. I’d nailed the target.

  “Who was he?”

  Her eyes widened. “Who was who?”

  I chuckled, leaning back and widening my stance, hands at ease on my thighs.

  “The fucker hurting you in your dreams.”

  Her gaze wandered over my bare chest. If I’d been a fucking peacock, I would’ve spread my feathers wider and preened for that look of admiration.

  Without saying a word, she took another sip. She wasn’t going to answer me. My sweet, little non-liar. Fine. I had lots more questions that needed answering.

  “Why’d you leave Maximus’s army?”

  Planting her bare feet on the floor, for I’d taken the liberty of removing her shoes when she fell asleep, she stared down, seemingly surprised to find herself without shoes. Another furtive glance.

  Yeah, baby. I’d taken them off. And sliding my hands over her slender ankle and arch of each foot was entirely too erotic an event for a man like me who was used to whips and ropes and keening moans to get off. Touching an angel’s fucking feet shouldn’t have gotten me so hard. But it did.

  It had nothing to do with her being an angel, but with her being Anya. Clear and steady and true. No games. No hidden agendas. No cryptic words to sift through and figure her out. Just…Anya.

  She wasn’t eager to answer me. Now, I really wanted to know.

  “Did someone push you out? Take your position of power? Piss you off?”

  That clear gaze sidled to me before she rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t anything like that.”

  “Tell me what it was like, then.”

  A heavy sigh. Her focus back on the fire.

  “It happened in Belfast.”

  She paused. Perhaps remembering.

  “Go on.”

  She nodded, clearing her throat, eyes still on the dying fire.

  “Maximus had intel of a dangerous horde growing in numbers on the north end.” She twined her fingers casually in her lap. “It was a routine battle plan. We had reconnaissance confirm that a vast horde had indeed full control of a large part of the city. That had been our mission for the weeks since the gates of heaven and hell had opened. To target the largest hordes first.”

  She inhaled a deep, shuddering breath before she went on.

  “The battle spilled off the street into a church. The angels could cross onto sacred ground, though the demons could not, of course.” She leveled a pointed look at me. “But their gunfire could.”

  “And? So they destroyed a church?” I shrugged a shoulder.

  “There were women and children—families—taking refuge in the church.”

  Ah. My angel’s soft heart was showing again. Such a sensitive soul.

  “Go on.” I shifted forward, listening intently.

  “I cried out for the angel soldiers to leave. They were making the humans a target, putting their lives in danger.”

  “But they didn’t listen.”

  “No.” Her fey eyes snapped with blue fury. “They ignored me and continued the fire fight, using the cathedral as a battle fort in which to engage the demons crowding into the churchyard. The archers shot streams of continuous ether-fire arrows out the open doors while the demons rained bullets. I couldn’t get the people to safety.” She swallowed hard. “There was a little girl, a red ribbon in her hair, staring at me from beneath an overturned pew, her eyes so wide with fear. One second I was looking at her, the next, the pew went up in an explosion, the child torn to pieces.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, apparently trying to erase the image. Though I’d never given a good goddamn about humans, besides the drakuls they could pay me for services rendered, that was a sad piece of shit who killed innocents. Or ignored their existence, and their deaths, to win a victory.

  “So you had enough of battle and left the legion.”

  “Not battle.” She scoffed, defiance in her eyes. “The legion. Maximus’s army who sought to destroy the enemy with no regard to the humans they killed along the way. After the battle, I’d raged about the incident at the cathedral to the general, but he waved me off, saying it was a simple consequence of war. Nothing he could do about it. Nor would he have changed tactics. The cathedral offered cover and gave us the upper hand.”

  “So you won that fight.”

  “Yes.” She jolted to a stand abruptly. “We won, Dommiel. But at what cost? Every man, woman, and child died in that church. A place they thought was a sanctuary away from the blood and death.” Facing the fire, she closed her eyes again, whispering, despair in every word, “That poor little girl.”

  I had the strangest urge to pull her into my arms, to soothe the pain she felt. The intensity of her emotions, her compassion, sparked something inside of me, flashing with violence like lightning in a storm. Refusing to give in to the compulsion, I braced my hands on my knees, keeping my seat and my mouth shut.

  She went on finally. “That’s when I realized that I wasn’t fighting for the right cause.”

  “You were fighting with your own kind. That wasn’t enough?”

  “No.” She snapped her fierce gaze to me. “It isn’t enough. We don’t kill innocents in order to gain victory. But apparently Maximus and his army did.” She shrugged. “So I left.”

  “And you found Uriel.”

  A single nod. “Everyone knew Uriel was the only archangel who’d been interfering in the human world, helping them for centuries. Long before the Great War had ever begun. I’d run into his hunters a time or two before.”

  Puzzled, for she’d have to have spent time on earth for that to happen, I asked, “How had you run into them?”

  “Before I was a soldier, I was a guardian.”

  “A guardian.”

  Of course. The way she’d defended those street urchins in Venice, the way her heart went out to the dead girl in that Belfast church, it all made sense now.

  “You were a guardian of children.”

  She faced me, the tips of her blue wings rimmed in gold.

  “A guardian of orphaned and neglected children,” she clarified.

  I stood, unable to hold back a rough laugh. As if she could get any more enticing. This skilled warrior with a guardian’s heart bled inwardly for the innocent and lost. I was no-fucking-where near innocent. The opposite. But I was eternally lost. For the first time in centuries, I had the impulse to reach out and grab hold, see if she didn’t anchor me in her slender arms. See if she wouldn’t offer me some of that balm of compassion she spread to the orphaned children of the world.

  The need to touch overrode my own will. Lifting my hand to cup her cheek, I slid the pad of my thumb across her closed mouth. Such a sweet mouth. Not the mouth of an angel warrior or a guardian.

  “You’re a rare breed, Anya.”

  She wrapped her fingers gently around my wrist. Not to stop me, but it did anyway. I dropped my hand.

  “What do you mean?” she asked in a low whisper.

  “You ac
tually give a damn.”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “There are others who care. Uriel and his hunters.”

  I sat again and stretched out a leg, the toe of my boot tipping up. “Strange lot.”

  Tilting her head at an angle, she said in a soft voice, “And you care.”

  I chuckled. “No, baby. I care about me,” I confirmed, tapping my chest with my metal hand.

  “But you made a blood vow to Genevieve, an enemy of demonkind.”

  “Yeah. She’s good at convincing a guy to go her way.”

  Anya smiled, the kind of knowing smile that struck fear in me. “I believe there’s more to it than that.”

  “Yeah? What do you believe?”

  “You love her.”

  She was wrong. And yet, Genevieve had awoken an idea, a thought that lay dormant for so long. The kind that was dangerous to a demon like me, a raw scraping idea akin to hope. And this angel was fanning the flame, while I tried to douse the light with my own cloak of cynicism and doubt.

  “I owe her a debt. Nothing more.” I inserted heavy gravity into my words, so she’d know I spoke the truth.

  Her mouth straightened into a tight line. I wanted to soften it with my own, take away that grim expression she wore. Her gaze flicked to the shelf behind me before she took a seat on the edge of the bed and began putting on her boots.

  “What’s the story behind the chalice?”

  Not even glancing, I smiled. “That was the chalice King Henry VIII drank from at his coronation feast at Westminster Hall shortly after he married Catherine of Aragon.”

  A crease pinched the middle of her brow. “Why would you collect something like this?”

  A shrug. “It was a symbol of a great king before he fell. Rather an ironic piece of history, that day, as it was the beginning of the end for him.”

  “But he ruled long. From what I know of human history, he was a prosperous king.”

  I scoffed. “Perhaps. But at what price?”

  Her brow arched at the very question she’d tossed at me a few minutes ago. “He was a traitor. Pure and simple.”

  Her frown deepened, but she glanced again at the shelf above my head. “And what about the Roman dagger? Just a random pretty blade you wanted?”

  The lilt of her question said she didn’t believe it was random at all. Smart, my angel.

  “That dagger belonged to Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus. He also went by the name Marcus Junius Brutus. Ever heard of him?”

  She seemed to be scanning her recollection of Roman history, finally landing on the most important part of both those names. “Brutus? The one who betrayed Caesar?”

  “The very one.” I lifted my chin as if to nod behind me. “That is the very dagger he used to kill the man he loved like a father.”

  Her pretty eyes pooled, glassy with emotion. “You seem to have an affinity for objects of betrayal.”

  Standing, I took the black long-sleeved thermal shirt from off my desk and pulled it on. With a hiss as the shirt brushed over my half-healed wound, I strapped on my shoulder harness.

  “I like to remember that every man, great and small, eventually falls prey to his own vices. Greed for lust, power, fortune.” I shoved my Glock, fully loaded with ether ammo into the holster and pulled on my leather jacket. “No man is good for long, angel. They all fall.”

  She’d laced her boots and stood with me, but her rabbit-quick heartbeat pulsed in the air, drawing my predatory senses.

  “Dommiel. I don’t believe—”

  An earth-quaking blast shook the building, the ceiling vibrating and shaking down dust. Before I could even register who or what had attacked us, I had Anya pinned to the ground beneath me, cradling her head with my arms. Her wide-eyed gaze locked on mine the second before another blast shook the building once more and shattered the window, knocking us into dusty darkness.

  Chapter Twelve

  Anya

  Plummeted into night, a few sparks from the fire still crackled after being snuffed out by the crumbling building. I was surprised to find Dommiel and I were in one piece. For a man who protested he cared for no one but himself, he had now saved me twice in one evening. Or perhaps it was now near morning. All I knew was that the weight of his protective body on top of me was a sensation I could come to cherish.

  The shouts from the street above and the sound of gunfire made it apparent the hit on this building was coincidence, not a target directly on us.

  “Come on,” he growled in my ear. “Let’s get out of here before the roof caves. We can’t sift till we’re outside my wards.”

  Yanking me to my feet, he hurried to his desk in the semi-dark and stuffed ammo into his satchel before grabbing a Bowie knife and tucking it into his boot. He grabbed a few other things and stuffed them quickly into his bag. A lightning flash pulsed bright through the crashed-in window, highlighting his grim look of determination as he swept the destroyed room one last time. His antique Greek vase lay in shards on the ground.

  “Let’s go.”

  Though a creature of some comfort who enjoyed his collectibles, he didn’t seem to care to leave them behind as he darted for the short stairwell and the outer door. I fell in quickly behind him.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to Germany where Axel said I’d find the witch, Nadya. He said she can give us the information we need to get inside Lisabette’s palace in Estonia.”

  He opened the steel door, still completely intact, checked the alleyway with his gun drawn and ready.

  “Come on.”

  Once outside, the repetitive flare of ether ammo zipping past the alley drew my gaze as humans ran toward the gunfire. Another crack of lightning, then a rumble of thunder.

  “Ah, hell.” Dommiel sighed as large, armed men fled past.

  “What is it?”

  “Looks like those Twelvers I’ve worked with have finally come to blows with King Henry’s men.”

  Then a familiar tall and lean figure strode past, his revolver in hand.

  “Xander.”

  I sifted to the end of the alleyway and peered around the corner. Dommiel was right behind me.

  “We’re leaving, Anya.”

  I shot him a look. “No. We’re not. That’s Xander, one of Uriel’s hunters. We’ll help him first.”

  “Christ, woman. This will be the second time I’m seen by demonkind fighting against them in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Then don’t help. Stay here in the alley and wait for me.”

  I zipped around the corner, unsheathing my long daggers, ignoring Dommiel’s violent curse as I slipped into the fray.

  Demons blasted the oncoming resistance fighters. Beyond the line and within a circle of demon guards, there were about a hundred humans on their knees, their hands bound behind their backs. Some were garbed in the black attire of Twelvers, but most were just ordinary women and children.

  I sifted to Xander’s side, shielding behind a truck as he fired rounds over the hood.

  With a quick glance, he returned his sights over the hood. “Hello there, darling. Decided to join us for another day of fun and frivolity? I’d thought you quit London.”

  His ever-casual dialogue, even in the face of death, delivered with his aristocratic English accent always seemed to make me smile. Despite the chance of imminent death.

  “I did,” I finally answered. “I’m on a quest to find Uriel.”

  His casual gaze sized me up and down. “Interesting. For it appears to me you’re crouched behind a sad little sedan in the south side of London, facing off those hellions we both love to hate.”

  “Seriously, Xander. What is going on here?”

  He aimed and fired, blasting a demon in the face who had sifted right in front of the car. His body crumbled, then exploded into fiery embers and ash.

  “Well, I’m firing at and killing demons. What are you doing?”

  So exasperating, this man. “Those humans they’ve got on their knees. What are they doi
ng with them?”

  His unruffled expression suddenly hardened into sharp angles. “Those are slaves to the demon hordes, if we don’t save them.”

  “Slaves?” My heart skipped a beat. “So many children.”

  “Indeed.” His voice had dropped into a darker region. “The demons of today enjoy playing with children.”

  “No, Xander.”

  He spared a glance for me. “It might be best if you sit this one out, darling.”

  His gaze flicked to my neck where the wound had healed. On the surface, anyway.

  “Why would I sit this one out?”

  Dommiel appeared on Xander’s other side. He gave a nod to Xander, who grinned at my partner, as to an old friend.

  “Hello, Captain Blackheart.”

  “Seems you’re up to your neck in shit as usual, eh, Goldilocks.”

  I stared in shock at their familiar and playful exchange, though neither seemed to mind me.

  “Always, Captain. You know, I really believe that eye patch looks fetching on you. I’ll bet it lures many women into your naughty lair.”

  Dommiel arched a brow at him, then returned his gaze over the hood. “Who’s in charge of this shit-show, anyway?”

  “On our side or theirs? Oh, wait. I mean our side or yours? Which is it these days? I never can figure out whose side you’re on.”

  Dommiel didn’t appear perturbed in the least at yet another accusation of him playing both sides. “Never mind.” A growl reverberated in his chest. “I just got my answer.”

  A sudden barrage of ether fire shot overhead and the screams of women and children echoed in the air with the howling storm. A storm that produced no rain, only sizzling electricity snapping in the air.

  A new wave of demons appeared, all in black except for red collars, a blasphemous mimicry of the priesthood.

  “Rook and Simian’s red priests,” I murmured, fear shooting adrenaline through my blood.

  The red priests were called such for the blood they spilled. They were some abomination of the princes’—hell-black hair and mouths and sharpened teeth with corpse-pale skin. They sifted into the demon-guarded inner circle, snatched and disappeared again, taking their captives to who knew where, two by two.

  Dommiel stood from the cover of the car and glared down. “We can sift in and save a few. Bring them to Dartmoor.”