“M

alphas, what happened to him?” Amaya licked peanut butter off her fingers. They sat in front of the open refrigerator with a spread of food. Banana peppers and olives, chips and salsa, oatmeal raisin cookies, crackers and Cheese Whiz. They found pistachio Haagen-Dazs in the freezer and used the stale cookies as spoons.

“He’s alive. Healing. Daghony and Ioath are with him in a hotel, on our dime since he’s broke.”

She couldn’t deny she was pleased Malphas wasn’t dead. That Demoni Lord had gotten under her skin. She didn’t love him, but she did like him.

They had won the battle. Claimed the prize. But a single battle was not the war. More shit headed their way and they needed a Demoni Lord on their side. Even an annoying one. She popped an olive into her mouth and eyed Bane. “That kiss. I allowed it.”

Silence stretched between them.

“I know.” His flat voice was diametrically opposed to the crimson blazing from his eyes.

Guilt twisted her gut. “I was curious. Not about him. About this thing between us.”

“This thing between us?” He swept the food out of the way and hauled her to him. He took her throat in a gentle caress, licked his way from her collar to her lips and stopped when she was ready for more. “This thing between us is a living, breathing entity that will not die. Understand?” He ended on a soft growl, crimson swallowed his irises.

Amaya reached for the can of Ready Whip they’d found in the refrigerator door. She shook it, listening to it rattle. Watched his nostrils flare and his lips peel back in a wicked grin. “Yeah,” she growled back. “I understand.” The can was empty when they were done and the kitchen was properly christened.

At dusk, they walked the property and made plans to expand. She wanted a garden, a small one, she could manage on her own. “And satellite TV to keep track of everything in the world. And a new dining table for the one you dented.” Bane didn’t argue.

He buried the Cruor in the basement—not displayed in the master bedroom as she wanted—beneath the pool table, a place where most of the UnHallowed gathered, though the place was currently empty.

“I told them to stay away. I wanted to be alone with you,” he said, and they ended up horizontal in front of the fireplace surrounded by candles, where he presented her with a single white and red tipped feather. He went back to Siberia to find it. Amaya couldn’t possibly love him more.

Bane led her into the pool, yet again. “Don’t be afraid.”

“After what we’ve survived? The water better be afraid of me.”

He took her into the deep end, taught her how to float. The water felt wonderful slushing around her naked skin. She angled her head toward Bane who floated next to her. He sported a tan. Days in the sun had done his body good.

She couldn’t possibly still be aroused after the amount of time they’d made love, yet she still hungered for him. Bane guided her into the depths of the pool. Free of gravity, the sensation was close to flying. Yet, she missed her wings. She missed the air caressing her feathers, filling her lungs. She missed Braile. The part of her Braile filled was now hollow and weak. The strength she’d gained from absorbing Braile’s essence was gone, along with the wings. She was herself again. Just Amaya.

Why did that sound like so much less?

Amaya broke the surface of the water and inhaled. She climbed out of the pool and retrieved her phone off the table. Six minutes submerged. The human limit. Completely normal.

She didn’t need to turn around to know Bane was at her back. His hand touched her waist, the heat of his palm warming her. “Do you miss them, your wings?”

His hand tightened, then seemed to absently caress her hip. His sigh brushed the top of her head. “Every day.”

She turned in his arms and met his gaze. Sorrow wasn’t what she found looking into his eyes, after all, he’d lost his wings millennia ago. “What color were they?”

His eyes drifted closed and a smile flirted with his lips. “Midnight blue with white flecks to blend with the night sky.” When he opened his eyes, the aquamarine coloring had deepened, mimicking midnight blue.

It wasn’t hard to imagine him soaring in the sky, invisible to the human sheep grazing below.

“There are many ways to fly, Amaya. Like when I’m inside of you.” He brought her in for a kiss, but she stopped him with a hand to the center of his chest.

Sharing a life meant sharing everything together. It was the only way they would work, had to be all or nothing. She couldn’t ask for his all and, in return, give nothing.

“The first time we met, you asked me who my parents were.” His hands stopped making circles on her hips. She inhaled a steady breath in order to share what she’d never shared with anyone.

“I didn’t lie. Richard and Nicole Prince were my parents. They were killed on a dirt road, officially it was ruled a car accident. My mother was barely seven months along with me. I should’ve died with her. Braile, he saved me. He cut me out of her womb. Said he heard my prayer. That was the first time he gave me his grace, he opened my chest and poured it right onto my heart. He made me who I am.”

“No.” Bane tipped her chin up and kissed her. “A fetus calling to the Chancellor of the Celestial Army… You are who you were meant to be, regardless of angelic grace. Braile only facilitated the change. Never forget that.”

Another reason to love to him. He brought her close for another kiss as her stomach growled. She ducked her head. One kiss would lead to them being horizontal again and she wanted food that she hadn’t cooked. “Let’s go out to dinner. The walls are starting to close in on me.”

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “The passenger always dies, is how the saying goes, right?”

She tossed back her head and laughed. “A big bad fallen angel, and you’re afraid of a little car ride?”

* * *

“I

don’t understand the plot of this show.”

“What’s not to understand? The explanation is in the title,” she said around the popcorn she’d just stuffed in her mouth. Cuddled in bed, her back warmed by Bane’s hard chest, the laptop was at the end of the bed as they binged on The Walking Dead.

“How did the Walkers come to be? When will they explain that?” he complained.

“They don’t.”

“Well, if they don’t know how it started, how will they cure it?”

She angled her head to meet his gaze. “It’s not about the cure. It’s about the survival.”

He rubbed his jaw. “I can understand that. It’s not about what you lost, it’s how to endure without it. I still want to know how it began.” He leaned in, buried his nose in her hair, and sighed.

Lately, she’d kept it loose. Bane loved it that way and she loved every time he pulled her close for an intimate sniff. He made her feel dainty and feminine and tingly and special. None of which she’d ever thought she’d experience. It made her love him more.

He kissed her. His taste mixed with the butter and salt on her lips. He was delicious. Show forgotten. Popcorn shoved aside, she stroked his bare chest, caressed his flat nipples, garnering a harsh purr. His hand slid under her tee and—

Bane lurched away from her.

No, not lurched. He was yanked away from her, pulled by some unforeseen force out of the bed, and pulled through the closed window.

She jumped up and ran to the shattered window, expecting to see him on the ground by the porch. Instead, he was yards away, at the edge of the lawn.

“What happened? How did you get there?” she shouted.

Bane didn’t answer. He just stood there, in the road, his hands up, his mouth open as if he were speaking, yet she heard nothing.

“Bane?”

Something wasn’t right. She ran out of her bedroom and made it halfway down the stairs when the front door opened and footsteps echoed in the tiny foyer. All of her senses flipped.

But it was Bane. Wasn’t it?

She gripped the banister and took one more step, her ears perked, her eyes straining, even though late afternoon sunlight poured through the windows. Something scraped across the floor. The staircase faced the rear of the house, not the front. She had no view of the front door, but…it had to be Bane.

Wood creaked beneath her feet when she took another step. Her muscles tightened in expectation of violence. Whoever was in her house, it wasn’t an UnHallowed, and it wasn’t Bane, she finally admitted.

Her weapons! She needed them.

She had to get to her storage chest at the foot of her bed. Her feet were swept out from under her and she was dragged down the stairs and flung into the kitchen. She skidded across the breakfast table, scattering the salt and pepper shakers and napkin holder. The table tilted and went tumbling with her. Rolling saved her from being buried beneath it. She slammed into the wall and leapt to her feet.

Fists raised, she faced Taige.