“The kitchen smells amazing.”
Suzanne looked up at Hawkyn and gave him a tired smile. With everything that had happened, they hadn’t had a chance to talk about their blowout yesterday, but maybe they didn’t need to. Hawkyn had chilled out, and she was happy to just let it go. She’d never liked conflict anyway.
“Thanks. I’m making chicken biscuit pot pie and cherry hand pies.”
“You make pie foods when you want to comfort someone.” His accusatory tone made her bristle. Obviously, Hawkyn hadn’t chilled as much as she thought.
“Declan just found out his memories have been altered, that I’m not who I said I was, and that his friend is dead, most likely killed by the demon that attacked us today. I think he can use a little comfort, and you’re not going to shame me for it.”
“Whoa.” He held up his hands in defense. “I’m concerned about you, but I learned my lesson.”
No, he hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to argue. “Well, thank you for checking to see what Declan did to earn being hunted by a Siecher. Hopefully we can figure out how he was able to kill one. And thank you for getting help to fight the bastard.”
He eyed her as if trying to decide if her change of subject was intentional to get away from talking about how much she wanted to comfort Declan, and if he wanted to let it go.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You’re just lucky I dropped by to tell you about the demons Declan took out and saw your car and Morroc in the middle of the road. I flashed back to Sheoul-gra and caught Journey, Maddox, and Ilsa on their way out for pizza.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe how much things have changed since Azagoth opened up his realm to us.”
Apparently, Memitim hadn’t always been team players, but the structure in Sheoul-gra lent itself to a family atmosphere and team building, and now, more often than not, Memitim had help when they needed it simply by asking.
“I wouldn’t know.” She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “I came straight from training to Sheoul-gra, and as you like to point out, I’m a baby angel.”
That got a smile from him, seeing how she hated being called that. “Let me know how it goes at the tattoo place.”
“I will.” A soft hiss escaped her bottle of sparkling water as she removed the cap. “Oh, and Hawk? When you got into Declan’s records at the Memitim Embassy, did you find out why he’s Primori?”
He shook his head. “Any information even slightly related to what their future actions are is available only at the highest levels. I mean Archangel levels. Not even the Memitim Council has that kind of intel.”
That was disappointing.
“And, sis?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.” He wasn’t talking about the tattoo parlor. He was talking about Declan.
“You keep saying that,” she reminded him. “I think I’ll be fine.”
Hawkyn’s skeptical expression remained with her as he shook his head and flashed away. Damn him. She knew what she was doing. She was going to keep Declan alive, and she was going to get an awesome job on a TV cable network—
Oh, no.
She was supposed to fly out to New York in the morning. Quickly, she dialed Cipher.
“’Sup, Suzie Bear?”
Always with the nicknames. She’d have to come up with something for Cipher. “Hey. Can we reschedule the meeting with the network people? I can’t get away right now.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but don’t get your hopes up. They indicated that they were under a deadline. I’ll hit you back in a few.” He hung up just as the timer on the oven indicated that dinner was ready.
A few minutes later, she had a tray loaded with pot pie, sautéed veggies, and little cherry pies, as well as a couple of sparkling waters, and was standing outside Declan’s door. She tapped lightly with the edge of the tray.
“If you’re an angel,” he called out, “come in. If you’re a demon, give me a minute to arm myself.”
She elbowed the door handle and walked into his room, where he was sprawled on the couch, surrounded by Demonica comics. As soon as he saw her, he leaped to his feet and took the tray.
“You didn’t have to bring this,” he said as he set the tray on the coffee table. “I would have come to the kitchen.”
She shrugged. “I just figured you might want to be alone. You’ve been through a lot, and my family can be...overwhelming.” Reaching out, she touched his shoulder. “And I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you.” He looked down at the tray, where her phone was buzzing. “You have a call.”
It was Cipher. “Excuse me for a second.” She hit the answer button. “Give me good news, buddy.”
The heartbeat of silence on the other end made her heart sink. “Sorry, Suz. The network can’t wait. They canceled your meeting.”
Shit. Closing her eyes, she gave herself a moment to get past the disappointment. Her dream had just been pulled out from under her, and it hurt more than she would have thought. She should have known it wasn’t in the cards. Her fate had been cemented in place since conception. Maybe she needed to accept that and move on.
But the thought of moving on made her want to cry.
“Suzanne?” Cipher’s voice called out gently over the airwaves. “You there?”
“Yeah.” She turned away from Declan so he wouldn’t see the tears stinging her eyes. “Are you sure they can’t hold off the meeting? Just for a couple of days?”
Obviously, accepting and moving on wasn’t going to happen right away.
“They said it’s tomorrow or nothing. Can you leave Declan with Hawk or something and just flash there?”
As tempting as that was, she couldn’t do it. She wanted the cooking show more than anything. Anything except making sure Declan lived. She trusted Hawkyn with his life, but she had a duty. She might not like that she’d been forced into this life, but Declan was more important than her dreams.
“It’s fine, Cipher. Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up before he could reply, and then she just stood there, looking at the floor.
“Hey.” Declan’s hand came down on her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said, but even to her own ears it sounded like a lie.
“Bullshit.” He turned her around, the gray in his eyes tempering from hard, cold steel to a soft mist. “What’s wrong, angel?” His words, spoken in a hushed whisper, broke her.
Tears blurred her vision as the first sob shook her body. “I lost the TV deal.”
“That was real? It wasn’t part of the cover story?”
When she shook her head, Declan pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry.”
She felt like an ass for needing him when he’d just lost his friend and she should be the one comforting him.
“It’s okay. I’m fine.” She tried to push away, but his arms tightened around her.
“You’re not fine, and this isn’t about the TV gig, is it?” He pulled back just enough to look down at her. “I know pretty much nothing about angels, but I know when people are lying and when they’re telling the truth. All those lies you told me about who you were? A rich heiress? It didn’t fit you.”
“Didn’t fit me?”
He wiped away a tear with his thumb, his touch so tender she nearly sighed. “You seemed as comfortable in this house as a cowboy in pantyhose. But when you talk about food and cooking, you light up, and you get the slightest hint of a Southern drawl. That’s the real you.”
“I’m an angel,” she said, the weight of that fact sitting heavily on her shoulders. “That can’t be the real me.”
“See? That’s why I said this isn’t about the TV gig. It’s about who you are.”
She peered up at him, amazed by his ability to parse through the background noise and focus on what was important. “How do you know that?”
“Because I don’t know who the fuck I am, either.” His voice started out gruff, but when he dipped his head and pressed a kiss into her hair, his tone gentled. “Especially now.”
And again, she felt like a piece of crap for whining about her own situation when his entire world had been turned upside down. Her dreams had died, but her world was still the same.
“I know who I am. And I know who I want to be. I just can’t be that person.” She dashed away the tears and stepped back. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you’re safe.”
“Fuck that.” He guided her over to the table of food. “I want to be safe, but I also want to know more about you. Things are a bit lopsided between us, seeing how you’ve been spying on me for a year and I just found out that you’re an angel instead of a rich heiress. So tell me who you are. I mean, I know precisely nothing about angels.”
She sank down in a chair. “There’s not much to tell. I’m a Memitim who lives in Sheoul-gra with over a hundred of my un-Ascended brothers and sisters. They’re all really great warriors, but I’ve never felt like I fit in.”
Declan took a seat on the couch kitty-corner from her. “Why not?”
No matter how many times she explained her feelings to her siblings, they didn’t understand. Maybe Declan, as a human, would.
“I grew up with a wonderful family in Georgia, and I was happy.” She smiled with fondness at the pot pie. Cooked in a cast iron skillet, it had been one of her mother’s favorites. “I thought I was human, and then I was plucked out of college and dropped into this world. I know it sounds selfish, but I didn’t want this for myself. I want to cook, and have a family, and just be normal, you know? Instead, I have this awesome responsibility and no freedom. But at least I got you as my first Primori.” She held out her right arm to show him the heraldi he’d asked about a few days ago. “What I told you about this was a lie. It’s actually an alarm system tuned to you. When it burns, that’s how I know you’re in danger. Well, it’s supposed to alert me to danger, but it’s kind of glitchy.”
“Seriously?” Reaching out, he took her wrist and gently rubbed his thumb over the raised, flesh-colored lines. “That’s cool. But Sheoul-gra? The Demonica comics say it’s where demons and evil people go when they die.”
“It is. My dad and Hades run it.”
“And your dad is…?”
“The Grim Reaper.”
She expected him to freak out, but he just nodded. “Of course your dad is the Grim Reaper.”
“You’re taking this well.”
He laughed, a deep, rich sound that warmed her all over. “In the last few hours I’ve been attacked by a demon, I’ve had a demon drink my blood while he unscrambled my brain, I learned that I killed a bunch of demons, that my girlfriend is an angel, and that her psycho assistant is really her super-powerful psycho brother. I think I’ve hit my shocked-out limit for today.”
My girlfriend is an angel. Suzanne hadn’t heard anything after those words. He’d called her his girlfriend! She felt like she was back in high school, giddy and smitten by this amazing man.
“Yeah, well, don’t count on it.” She scooped some of the chicken pot pie into a bowl, making sure to get a lot of biscuit. “I’ll bet you’re still shockable.”
“Try me.”
She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. But that cocky set to his jaw practically begged her to win this challenge.
“Well,” she said as she pierced a big chunk of chicken with her fork, “since we Memitim are forbidden to have sex, and I didn’t sleep with anyone during the years I thought I was human...”
It took a couple of seconds for her words to sink in. And then he rocked back in his seat. “Oh my God. You were a virgin. Holy shit, I...I...”
“You deflowered an angel.”
Yep, she was right. He was definitely still shockable.
* * * *
Declan wasn’t struck silent often, but man, it felt like his voice had taken a permanent leave of absence. Or maybe it was his brain that was on the fritz. Either way, it took him forever to finally manage a highly articulate “Huh?”
“It’s no big deal—”
He exploded to his feet, nearly knocking over the coffee table and the tray of food. “No big deal? Come on. You said there are rules about humans and angels. ‘We can’t let anyone see us. We definitely can’t let anyone know we had sex.’ You said that. What happens now? I mean, taking an angel’s virginity? Holy shit. Your nut job brother is going to kill me.”
“He can’t kill you.” She made it sound like the guy hadn’t already tried. “You’re Primori.”
“What the fuck is Primori? You never really explained that. And why am I one of them? Because I killed some demons?”
She took a bite of her pie, and his stomach growled even though the thought of eating didn’t sit well with him right now.
“We don’t know why anyone is ever Primori.” She washed her food down with a swig of sparkling water. “We’re assigned a human or demon and we protect them—”
“Demons? You protect demons too?”
“Sometimes. I told you that Primori are people—human or demon—who will play an important role in the fate of humanity. They aren’t always good people. The worst people in history were Primori because their actions shaped the world we live in today.”
He sank down on the couch again. “So you’re saying I’m important to humanity in some way?”
“Exactly.” She gestured to the Demonica comics. “Maybe someday someone will write one about you.”
That would be the coolest thing ever. Hopefully he wouldn’t be a villain. Or the clueless jackass who deflowered an angel and got struck down by lightning.
Oh, Jesus... She’d been a virgin. What if she wasn’t of legal angel age? Whatever that was.
“I hope this isn’t a rude question, but...how old are you?”
“I’m in my mid-seventies,” she said with a defensive sniff, as if this was a touchy subject for her. “I’m not a baby angel no matter what everyone says.”
Whoa. She looked pretty damned good for being the age his grandfather had died. “You said you grew up in Georgia? With a human family?”
She nodded. “All Memitim grow up with humans. Well, that’s changing now that my father isn’t breeding anymore.”
Breeding? He was going to let that go for now. “Did your human parents know the truth about you?”
She shook her head. “My mother replaced their human baby with me. It’s what happens to all Memitim babies. The practice is the basis of Changeling folklore.”
Made sense, seeing how Changelings were supposedly the offspring of fairies who had been swapped out with human infants. And hey, look at that, Declan’s nerdy knowledge was coming in handy now.
Take that, everyone who ever made fun of me. Tag. Remy. Shane. Steve. Gareth. Every person who had ever met him outside the comic book store.
Thinking of Gareth and Steve threatened to drag him down when he needed to be alert, now more than ever, so he went back to concentrating on learning as much as he could about this new world that had just been revealed to him.
“So what happens to the biological children of these humans?”
Suzanne waved her fork as if gesturing to the Heavens. “They’re adopted through angelic channels.”
“That’s kind of fucked up.”
“It’s better than it used to be before adoption agencies. There was a time when the infants were left at churches or in town squares.” She suddenly looked sad. “Trust me, the human babies usually get the better end of the bargain.”
“So why do they go through all this trouble?” He finally reached out to dish up some pot pie, but at the last second went for the cherry pies. This felt like a dessert-first kind of day, when life came at you hard and fast and you didn’t know if you were going to live to have another meal. He and his special military team had been firm believers in eating dessert first before a mission, and if ever a situation called for having pie before dinner, having a demon trying to kill you was it. “Why are you raised by humans instead of your mother?”
“It’s so we’ll learn the ways of the humans we’ll be protecting,” she explained. “And they make sure we have awful childhoods so we’ll be tough.”
“Didn’t you say you had a great childhood?”
She nodded. “I was lucky. My human mom was supposed to marry the abusive dirtbag who got her pregnant, so I guess the angels thought I’d have a crappy home. But at the last minute, she called off the wedding, went back to the family that disowned her, and she met a brilliant, handsome doctor and lived happily ever after.”
“Did they have kids?”
She smiled fondly, and maybe it was selfish and stupid, but he felt a twinge of jealousy that she’d had the kind of childhood he’d craved. “I grew up with two brothers and a sister. My brothers died within a year of each other about ten years ago, and my sister died more recently. I visited her every day in the nursing home.”
“So if they didn’t know the truth about you, how did you hide the truth from them? You obviously don’t age beyond, what, twenty-five?”
She beamed. “I’ll take it.”
“Seriously,” he said as he licked sweet glaze from the pie off his finger. “Do you age?”
“We naturally stop aging in our twenties. But once we earn our wings, we can choose to appear any age we want. It’s the same with humans in Heaven. Everyone looks like they’re in their twenties unless they change their appearances to greet a relative crossing over from death in the human realm.”
Stomach rebelling again, he set his hand pie down without tasting it. He’d give anything for a shot of whisky right now. This was way too much information to process. “So how did you find out the truth? What happened with your family?”
“A Memitim sister came to me when I was twenty. I was in college and having the time of my life. I was just starting to date, and I was going to be a chef someday... I had it all. Then Marisol showed up, and I had to go with her.”
Declan would have been thrilled to learn that the people he’d thought were his parents weren’t. But Suzanne didn’t sound like she’d been happy about the news. “You believed her right away?”
“She didn’t have to say a word,” Suzanne said after taking a drink of her sparkling water. “The instant I saw her, the truth of my existence filled me.”
“Was it hard to leave your life and everyone you loved?”
“It was awful.” Sadness cast a shadow across her face. “I had to fake my disappearance and let my family believe I was dead. For years I watched them hope and pray and grieve. My mother went to her grave believing I’d someday come home.” She inhaled a ragged breath and squared her shoulders. “So it was hard, but ultimately, I understood I was bred for this purpose. I had been tasked by Heaven to protect mankind,” she finished, a little defensively. “It also helped that I got to join a new family.”
That was how he’d felt about the military. It had been tough love, for sure, but after no love at all, it had meant everything to him.
Until Gareth died and he’d gone on a self-destructive binge that had led to his separation from the Air Force.
He swore under his breath, and Suzanne held out a bite of her chicken pot pie. “Here. Eat this. It’ll help you relax.”
“Why?” He eyed the fork with suspicion. “Is the gravy full of sedatives?”
“Nope. It’s full of good, old-fashioned ‘angel emo,’ as Cipher calls it.” She made an impatient gesture with her fork, so he took the bite. “When I cook, my emotions fuse with the food. And when I cook on my cooking show and people prepare the dishes while they’re watching it, their food gets infused, too. It’s why my show has a cult following.”
He remembered her saying something about how, when her viewers prepared her dishes while they watched the show, they’d feel the effect from the food that she intended. He’d figured the whole thing was a gimmick. It was pretty incredible that it was real.
“It probably helps that your cooking is amazing,” he said. And she was right. He’d only just swallowed the pie and already a sense of ease was spreading through him like warm sunshine. “Earlier today...the lunch you put together for me and Steve...what were you feeling when you made it?”
Her long lashes flew up. “We’d just made love. I was happy. You couldn’t tell?”
Made love. Her words made him suck in a startled breath. He wouldn’t call what they’d done “making love.” They’d had sex. They’d fucked. In a room he could only assume was used by angels to torture demons.
She’d deserved better.
“Yeah, I could tell,” he said gruffly. “And it put Steve in a great mood. Best I’d seen him in for a while.” Closing his eyes, he gave himself a minute to breathe. Steve was a good guy, a good friend, and he was going to miss him. “Thank you for giving him that before he died.”
“I wish I could do more. For him and for you.” She put her food down and moved from the chair to the couch cushion next to him, sitting so close he could feel her heat on his skin. “What can I do?”
Looking into those sweet eyes, all he could think about was how they’d been drowsy, glazed, and sated after he’d made her come. He wanted to do that again. But mostly, selfishly, he wanted to take comfort from her. This new world was bizarre, and she was part of it, but she was tangible and real, and he wanted to ground himself in her. And against her.
Shifting to face her, he slanted his mouth over hers. Instantly, she melted against him, bringing her entire body into contact with his. She was so warm, her flesh firm except in all the places it should be soft.
“I want to be naked,” she whispered against his lips. “And I want you to be naked too. On the bed. I want to be tangled in the sheets with you. And I want you to wake me up in a couple of hours so we can have sex again.”
He smiled. “You’re very demanding.”
Her cheeks turned bright red. “I’ve seen stuff like that in movies. I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like.”
“You know,” he said, as he stroked her bottom lip with his thumb, “you seem very different from your brothers and sisters. Are you typical for an angel? Or are they?”
Her gaze dropped as if she was ashamed. “They are. They like battling demons and sparring with each other and hunting down evil. They love what they do.” She looked back up at him, her brown eyes swimming in what he could only call disappointment. “I hate it. I want to serve in some other way, but we’re born for a purpose, and I just have to suck it up.” All of a sudden, a wicked smile curved her glossy lips. “Speaking of sucking...”
Her fingers found the fly of his jeans, and before he could stop her—not that he would—she’d ripped it open. Then, just as she started to slip off the couch to drop to her knees, he gripped her arms and stood them both up.
“What are you doing?”
She made a sad little noise. “Am I doing it wrong already? I’ve read books...”
Jesus. She was so...innocent.
What did you expect? She’s a damned angel.
It felt so wrong to want to see her doing dirty things.
You fucked her on a bondage horse.
And he wanted to do it again. But maybe not until they’d done it right. She needed a better “first time.”
“You did nothing wrong.” His voice sounded raw and needy, maybe because his balls were tight with anticipation. “I just want to do this in a bed. Tangled in the sheets, like you said.” He drew her in and kissed her before sweeping her up into his arms. “You deserve to be worshipped.”
“Because I’m an angel?”
“No,” he murmured. “Because you’re Suzanne.”
This time the noise she made wasn’t born of worry that she’d done something wrong. This time, it was because she’d done everything right, and as he carried her toward the bedroom, she wrapped her arms around him and settled against his chest, holding him tight.
Something inside him loosened at that moment. All the resistance that had hardened his heart when it came to relationships started to break apart like hard-packed snow on a mountain. An avalanche of affection crashed over him, and he knew that, after today, nothing would be the same.