Renegade Angel

The words came out strangely, giving him pause. Still, he meant them, if only in the most temporary sense. He’d brought out the demon in Ember once, and easily. He’d no doubt see quickly that she really was no different from every other stinking half-breed on the planet. When she broke, which she would, he could handle whatever she threw at him until the damned cavalry arrived to save the day. He’d get over this stupid thing about the woman, she’d get shuttled off to Hell that much sooner, and best of all, Uriel would be pissed off the whole time.

It was the perfect solution.

Uriel’s jaw tightened to the point Raum thought it might crack … and wouldn’t that have been satisfying … but finally, he rose stiffly and fixed Raum with eyes that were full of warring emotions. Raum himself felt nothing but disgust. Uriel was everything that was wrong with the angels, letting his heart rule alongside his mind, placing some misguided idea of right and wrong above cold logic. He had grown past him.

Then how do you explain what you’re doing right now?

The whisper in his mind was soft, insidious, the shadow of the demon who had been celebrated as the Destroyer of Dignities before being brought low. The demon, he thought with a furious sort of determination, he still was. Still, the voice made his blood run cold.

Uriel’s eyes narrowed, but he turned to Levi. “Let me know,” was all he said. Then he was gone, slamming out of the bar with such force that the door frame cracked.

They sat in silence, the three of them, the faint sound of music from the jukebox the only sound in the nearly empty bar. Finally, Gadreel broke the silence.

“Well,” he said with a humorless flash of his teeth. “That was fun. Now if you’ll excuse me, before I dash off to find the Nexus and save the world, I believe there are several deadly sins that require my immediate attention.”

He stood, pushed in his chair and strode off in the direction of the waitresses, who were still huddled by the kitchen door and watching him hungrily.

Raum watched him go, forcing himself to relax his grip on the bottle before it shattered in his hand. He felt Leviathan’s eyes on him, but ignored that searching stare. He wasn’t in the mood. He hated talking, and he hated company. And he particularly hated Gadreel.

His gaze drifted back to the little shop across the street, and just for an instant, his eyes met Ember’s. There was a hot rush of awareness, like being caught in a sudden blast of desert wind, and the hair on his arms, the back of his neck, rose at the electricity that seemed to snap through the air between them.

He watched her flush and turn away, retreating farther into the store where he couldn’t see her. All he was left with was a toxic combination of fury at his want of her and utterly reckless, overwhelming desire.

Chapter 3

Ember woke in a cold sweat, thrashing her way to the surface until she realized that all she was fighting were her sheets, twisted around her body.

She’d had the nightmare again: a red desert. A gaping hole in the sand full of living, writhing horrors … a hole she had created. And all the while, the beautiful, terrifying man with the wings looking on approvingly. He had given her the words, though by now she knew them by heart … and as it always did, power had poured out of her like rain in a summer storm.

Not like when she was awake, living life as an undercover mutant without a cause. Though she didn’t think she would ever want that sort of power in her real life.

She’d had dreams like that off and on since she was a kid, an awkward little redhead with few friends, a dad whom she’d never met and who was only ever referred to as “that good-for-nothing scumbag,” and a mother who alternated between ignoring her and hating her. They were always scary. But in a way, they’d been kind of comforting. At least the man with the wings, the Bad Angel, as she’d always thought of him, hadn’t judged her so harshly as everyone else. He’d liked the things that made her different.

Too bad he was just as unreal as her stupid dreams. Then again, she wasn’t completely sure she wanted to meet that guy in real life. Not that he’d ever hurt her, but she’d never been able to shake the impression that he’d be a much nastier customer in person than she could ever be in her worst moments.

A soft, tapping sound jerked Ember from her jumbled waking thoughts, bringing her crashing back to the dark silence of her room. Or near silence. Ember lay utterly still, warm beneath her covers, hearing nothing but the faintly ragged sound of her own breathing. Moonlight poured in her window, the wind making the shadows of trees dance across her wall.

Ember exhaled slowly.

Calm down, she told herself. It was just her frayed nerves playing tricks on her, that was all. There was no doubt that her week had been one of the weirdest in recent memory, and she could pinpoint exactly when it had started: the second the tall, dark and strangely irresistible man had wandered into her shop and sent her sex drive into nuclear territory. She hadn’t had a reaction like that since puberty had hit her like an oncoming train, but even so, this time had been different. She’d never felt called to a man like that.

Of course, Ember was pretty sure she’d never seen a man quite like that. Period. But still …

She’d just begun to relax, accepting that she was only freaking herself out, when she heard it again.

Ember blinked the sleep from her eyes, and everything in the dark room came into sharp relief. As annoying as her weirdness could be, being able to see in the dark occasionally came in handy. She slowly sat up, telling herself that it was nothing, even as adrenaline began to pump through her system.

Then she saw them, twin red coals watching her unblinkingly from right outside her window. Her heart stuttered in her chest, and Ember barely stifled a small scream as her hand went to her mouth. The red pinpoints bored into her, unblinking …

Then it fluttered its wings, and the illusion was bro ken. Moonlight glinted in eyes that were no longer red. Wind lifted shadows that became feathers.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ember found herself fending off a fit of nervous laughter. It was a crow. Not a demon, not Poe’s ominous raven, but a common crow, probably cold and taking a breather from the tempestuous night wind. Except …

Ember narrowed her eyes, taking a good look at it. It couldn’t be the same bird, but damn it, it looked just like the enormous crow that had taken up residence at her shop. It had been there all week, perched on the sign, or the window-sill or the tree planted in the sidewalk just down from her door. Weird, she thought with an involuntary little shiver. Even weirder was that she hadn’t been able to shake the sensation that the bird wasn’t just hanging around, but watching her. Which made no sense. As little sense, in fact, as her continuing obsession with the fact that the crow had arrived on Monday afternoon, not long after she’d seen Raum in Mick’s, the bar across the street. And he had been watching her then.

She’d broken three more bottles of essence after that.

“Not thinking about it. Not going there,” Ember said aloud, hoping the sound of her own voice would add a little more reality to the decidedly surreal night. Bolstered, if only a little, she addressed the bird on the sill.

“Fly away, birdie. Go home. No vacancy.”

It really was a beautiful bird, Ember thought as it watched her unblinkingly, the largest crow she’d ever seen, at least up close. She knew they were scavengers, but they were supposed to be really smart, too. This one certainly looked as if it had its wits about it. But enough to follow her home from work?

As she watched, it held her gaze, leaned forward. Then:

Tap tap tap.

It wanted in.

“No way,” Ember murmured, amazed. She’d sure as hell never seen a bird wanting to visit inside someone’s house before. Obviously, all it would do if she opened the window would be to either fly off into the night, or worse, to come in and then freak out about what it had thought it wanted. But … what if it was tame? Someone’s escaped pet, caught in the oncoming storm? What if it wasn’t used to being outside and would wind up dead if she left it in the cold?

What if it needed her?

That was the sweet spot, right there. The one she couldn’t resist indulging.

“Oh, honestly,” she muttered. “Fine. Let’s be stupid.”

She got out of bed and padded to the window, the moonlight painting dappled images on her bare skin. It was probably idiocy, but she was never going to feel right about it if she just let the poor crow sit there. And anyway, she had few enough friends. That was one of the overarching themes of her life: alone. Who was she to shun a fellow creature based solely on species?

Her fingers had just flipped the latches when there was a flurry of motion behind her, a rapid scuttling noise, clickity-clickity-click, like a small animal scurrying across her floor. The window slammed up of its own accord just as the claws sank into her shoulders.

Ember had only a vague impression of something huge and black exploding into her room from the night, just before she was hurled across the room as though she weighed no more than a doll. For a moment, she was weightless. Then, in a lightning-quick burst of instinct that came out of nowhere, she tucked herself into a ball, rolling rather than slamming into the floor or wall and ending quickly in a defensive crouch on the far side of her bed.

There was a split second of recognition that, under other circumstances, she would have thought her move had been pretty damn cool. Then she heard an inhuman, outraged shriek, and something deep inside her roared in response. A sudden wave of bloodlust crashed through her like a tidal wave. All her carefully constructed barriers crumbled in an instant, and the daylight creature she fought to be evaporated in the face of the night creature she truly was.

There was a crash, the sound of shattering glass. And a fierce growl that stirred Ember in ways that had nothing to do with violence. So familiar … she had to see, to know. In a single, nimble leap, Ember cleared the bed and immediately found herself confronted with a sight straight out of a horror movie.

The two creatures grappled by the window, reduced to shadows where they fought, backlit by the moon. One of them, the one she knew immediately had drawn the blood that had already dried on her shoulders, was truly the most hideous thing she’d ever seen. Its skin was a deep and angry red even in the darkness, and its squat and muscular body strained as blood poured from a gash across its head. And that head … stubby, curved horns protruded from the forehead, and its snout pulled back to reveal a maw full of dagger-sharp teeth.

As Ember watched, the creature drew back its arm and slashed its claws across the cheek of its opponent, earning, amazingly, no more than a pained grunt for its trouble.

“You’ll pay for that, you nefari piece of shit,” snarled a voice that she recognized the second she heard it. She would know that voice anywhere. The wings, however, sprouting from his back with a kind of strange majesty, took her utterly aback.

Just like in my dreams.

His blazing eyes, a hot and angry green, connected with hers for only a split second, sending a jolt through her that seemed to set every nerve ending she had aflame at once. Stripped of her inhibitions, Ember let the connection between them ripple through her, the siren song of pleasure promised far greater for her than the interest in the fight.