CHAPTER TWELVE
Zander sat in his club office downstairs, music pounding at steady thrum from his day staff on the other side of the wall. He closed the video file of the Cherub’s kidnapping. He’d read through the reports laid out before him, reviewed the intel, and still, there were more questions than answers. Why would a member of the Cherubim, keepers of the lives of man, come to his club looking for him? What alloy dissected a Nephilim and blocked his ability to heal? Who got inside his building to dump Tanek’s body into the elevator? Why was he the target?
With hours yet until sundown he sat spinning his wheels. There was no point hitting the streets until nightfall when the Darkworld came to life. The squad wanted blood. Rightly so. They would find the asshole who killed Tanek and exact lethal justice.
He rubbed the hollow ache in his chest. Tanek had been the living, breathing heart of their garrison for forever. Now, all eyes were on him to fill those boots, but damn, he doubted he’d ever live up to his brother’s greatness.
The hum in his head buzzed at a deafening level—an invasive hornet colony nesting in his skull. He scrubbed his hands over his face and exhaled. Enough with this. His men expected him to pull up his big-boy pants and lead them in the years and centuries and millennia ahead. Millennia.
His gaze ping-ponged around the charcoal-grey office interior from his desk to Kyrian’s desk, to Austin sitting with her laptop on the leather sofa, to the brass practice-cage they used to audition new dancers. That cage set off an entirely new set of images in his mind.
Damn. Austin pushed his control to its limit and then one inch further. An unforgettable woman who had to be forgotten.
“Zander? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, cowgirl. Why do you ask?”
“The way you’re beatin’ your keyboard feels like you’re fixin’ to strangle someone.”
“Nothing I can do about that I’m afraid.” He shifted in his chair and repositioned trying to focus. How did Tanek keep all these balls in the air? He never seemed crushed beneath his position’s weight. The guy had focus and drive Zander could only hope to match.
Hitting the keyboard, he opened the file Phoenix and Seth gave him last night. As Prince of Powers, Auriel was the most violent of the archangels. When he found out the missing female was a Cherub he would—
A knock at the door tore a growl from his chest. “What?”
Colin popped his green mohawked head in the door a crack. “Sorry. Bad time?”
Zander exhaled and waved the kid in. “Not your fault. What’s up?”
He held out a folded piece of paper. “The grocer expected a cheque this morning. I called up, but nobody answered.”
Zander flipped open the purchase order, but nothing on the page registered. “Yeah, it’s been one hell of a day. Sorry the shit landed on your shoulder, buddy.”
Colin shrugged, biting the ring pierced through his lip.
Zander rested his elbows on his desk recognizing the kid’s tell. “Okay, let’s hear it. What’s on your mind?” When he hesitated, Zander inhaled and got a lungful of anxiety. “Colin? Do you need a private word? Is everything cool—”
He waved away the concern and squared off as if he were facing the firing squad. “I’m not saying you and Kyrian don’t do a great job with this place, you do. Both of you. Nobody thinks otherwise, don’t think that, but there are girls who want to switch shifts, applications piling up for the open dancer position, and the last liquor order was fucked. Kyrian had to spend the afternoon re-inventorying the main bar and the two cooler bars. Obviously, the two of you have more important things on your minds right now but . . .”
Zander leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers. “But?”
“Uh, Jules and I got talking.” He swallowed and rubbed his palms on his camo pants. “It’s just, we thought with everything that’s happened . . .”
“For fuck’s sake, Colin, spit it out.” The kid stiffened and Zander cursed. “I’m sorry, buddy. Just tell me. What’s doing?”
“Jules and I want to step up and take care of club business. Jules will handle the front of the house and I’ll take charge of the back. It’ll free you and Kyrian up for more important stuff and well, yeah, that’s about it.”
Zander leaned back and let that sink in. Now that he was a commander, the idea of handing off schedules, ordering, and payroll was appealing, but— “Kyrian and I would want to be hands on. We’d handle the drop-ins and would have our noses in all things Otherworld.”
“Absolutely.”
“If things went south, it would be your asses on the line.”
Colin laughed. “I can’t speak for Jules’s ass, but mine has been in tougher situations than you two ripping me a new one.”
That it had. “Okay, sounds good in theory. I’ll think on it and get back to you.” He held up his fist for a knuckle bump and waited for the door to close behind him. Handing off club management would lighten his load that’s for damn sure. Paperwork wasn’t—
Shiiit. He hadn’t prepared an end of week report for the archangels. He needed to get the soul count figured out before Michael came down on him like the anvil he was. And Auriel’s arrival regarding the missing Cherub loomed large. Heads would roll once that man had a target. Scrubbing his fingers through his hair he sucked in a deep breath and got a lungful of—Austin.
Why did she have to smell so good?
He slid a stealthy glance to the leather sofa against the far wall. The woman had been scowling at her laptop for hours. When he’d visited her apartment, he’d seen the thing open on the postage stamp she used as a kitchen table and brought it, amazed, yet again, how little her lack of sight held her back. She was a warrior in her own right.
A growl rumbled deep in his chest. He considered himself a strong man. He’d survived his childhood, risen to the top in his training with the Powers, fought in countless wars, both on winning and losing sides. He’d been shot, stabbed, tortured, cracked in the head, hit by cars, fallen from heights and nearly drowned. He’d always handled things with strength, honor and commitment to duty.
He never doubted his ability to face a tough situation and come out the victor and no one ever implied that he wasn’t committed to his station. He’d never faltered in his duty or even questioned his orders. Until Austin.
“You haven’t said much since Danel dropped his little prophetic bomb this morning, cowgirl. On a scale of one to ten, how pissed are you?”
The look she pegged him with locked the breath in his chest.
“Pissed?” she repeated. “Pissed doesn’t begin to cover it. No strings is different than you dyin’ because you’re with me. That should have come up. It was stupid.”
“I won’t die.” The wheels of his desk chair squeaked as he rose. He crossed the room to sink into the couch beside her. “I’m immortal.” Sort of.
She cast him a withering stare and he marveled yet again that she could glare so impressively that he felt it clench the air from his lungs. “I thought you understood I need you to shoot straight from the hip. I’m much better at dealin’ with things when I have the facts.”
“You have the facts. There is an age-old prophecy that may or may not have anything valuable to add to our lives. Nephilim are forbidden to form relationships, to care for someone or to have anything of our own. We are soldiers. Tools of the heavens. Nothing more. Like Danel said, you and I found pleasure in a moment of two worlds colliding but there can be no permanence, no relationship . . . no future. I’m sorry.”
She scratched her arm and bristled. “I’m not a child, Zander. We’re adults. We had sex. I wasn’t expecting anything beyond the moment. You should have been upfront with me.”
His beast didn’t like the way this conversation was headed at all. He wanted to eliminate the distance not drive a wedge between them. He unclenched his fists and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention it. Honestly, with the world exploding around me, I just wanted one moment for myself.”
Austin’s face softened and she exhaled. Stetson stirred on the floor, his paws twitching as he dreamed whatever it was dogs dreamed of.
“I can understand that. You have a lonely lot in life. I’m sorry about that.”
Zander shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“Why are you guys here, anyway? Why aren’t you . . .” She frowned and gestured to the sky.
“Floating on a cloud somewhere?”
“Yeah, strummin’ your harp and frolickin’ with flaxen-haired beauties in gowns.”
“Other than that being commercial bullshit?”
She chuckled, and he was relieved for the ease in tension. “Yes, other than that.”
Zander tugged her earpiece out and set her laptop on the coffee table. Sliding her closer, he scooped her legs over his lap. They might not be allowed to have sex, but he was going squirrely not touching her. “The realm where the Choir of Angels exists is extraordinary—no argument. The females in gowns could inspire a grown man to chew off his own leg, but it’s not the place for males like me.”
“Do they have rules about cussing?”
He laughed. “Once Nephilim are grown and trained, our place is with the humans and Otherworld citizens we protect. I’m half angel, but that half is not the harp strumming, cloud hopping type.”
“Raphael and Michael seemed house-broken.”
He shook his head. “Don’t let their domesticated threads fool you. The seven—Michael, Raphael, and the others—have enough power to level the Hell Realm. Their urge to fight courses in our blood, but our human side makes us far more volatile, protective and often standoffish. We defend mankind by embracing our lethal side. We are killers.”
“And that doesn’t sit well with the folks upstairs?”
“Not really, no.”
She laid her head against his shoulder and breathed him in for a few quiet moments.
He liked this, just chilling together, talking about things he never got to talk about. He had his brothers, sure, but they didn’t do feelings. And his staff . . . they were staff.
“Austin, do you believe?”
She chuckled. “It’s hard to deny what you’re saying. I’ve got no other explanation.”
“I don’t mean believe what I’m telling you, I mean believe, as in faith in something other than that which you can explain. Something spiritual that guides you.”
She shook her head. “Politics and religion are two things I never discuss . . . especially with a guardian from the heavens.”
He ran his palm over her denim covered thigh and reveled in her weight. He felt like he’d float away if she wasn’t holding him down. “Angels have nothing to do with religion. Angels existed long before Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism or any of the ism’s.”
“I’d bet there are millions of God-fearing, church-goers that would argue.”
He shrugged, tilting his head so her hair brushed his face. “Long before humankind tried to organize the Otherworld into competing spiritual categories, or claimed enlightenment for the sake of land, riches, or war, there existed the tenuous balance between benevolence and malevolence, good and evil. Nephilim ensure that balance remains intact. There is Light. There is Dark. We are the Watchers of the Gray.”
“So, like eternal affairs.” She chuckled at her own joke.
He ran his knuckles against the line of her jaw and across her lips. Silky smooth. “I won’t apologize for my nature. I’ve taken lives for thousands of years, Austin. Thousands of years protecting the innocent.”
“Doesn’t running a sex club exploit the innocent?”
He inhaled. “I exploit no one. Evil preys on humans lost on the fringe of society, those alone, struggling to survive. My club is a safe zone. Every staff member, human or Otherworlder, comes from one bad situation or another: drugs, beatings, street violence, rape—”
“Wait. You have demon people workin’ for you? Jules?”
“Jules is human. She’s married to a daemon, but that’s beside the point.” His voice deepened, and he leaned back so she could see his face. “I offer a place where anyone who needs it can work without judgment and build or rebuild their lives. If they stay, they’re welcome, if not, I pay for them to take courses and complete their education, to relocate to a new life. When they’ve outgrown this place, I finance their new beginnings.”
“But why a sex club?”
Zander’s lips pressed into a tight line. “You’re looking at my club through human eyes—sin, shame, judgment. To members of the Otherworld, human expectations of propriety don’t apply. Live and let live. Hedonism. Group pleasure. Hooking up for money. If the parties involved are willing, it’s really no one else’s business. People get to make their own choices and I provide a safe environment for different races and alignments to interact. Light or Dark. Angel or daemon.”
“Daemons means demons, right?”
He nodded. “Daemon is the proper genus term for any creature born of the Darkworld whether they are part of Darkworld armies sinking their talons into human innocents or those who live peaceably with them. Demon is a more colloquial term used for specific epithets or races: Incubus Demon, Serpentine Demon, Fire Demon, or not in other cases like Shedim, Djinn, Shades, Spirits, Nightmares—”
“Darkworld armies,” she repeated looking appalled. “Your academic tone is crazy. You discuss this like we’re in a grade ten science class.”
Good. This highlighted that he and Austin were two worlds colliding. No permanence, no relationship. No problem.
Sliding her higher onto his lap, he pulled her against his chest. Images of their brief communion flooded his mind. The smell of sex and sweat filled his head. The heat coming off him when they fit together was incredible. He had been enthralled. It had nothing to do with manipulation. It was lust for Austin.
Plain. And. Simple.
In another world, another life, they could’ve been great together. But in this life, he was a warrior—and she didn’t belong in his world. She wasn’t for him and no matter what they were experiencing. He was determined to do his duty, wipe her memories, and send her home.
“What does she look like? The girl y’all tried to help?”
Zander swallowed. “The female I failed to help?”
Austin nodded. “She’s beautiful I’m sure, coming from the Heavens.”
He revisited the Cherub’s image, not as a warrior searching for her, but as his bouncer, Meck, had seen her as she entered the club. “She would catch a man’s eye, yes. Though sadly, it may have been better for her to be plain. Why do you ask?”
She straightened, her scent rich with regret. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
She shook her head, heat warming her cheeks. “Nothing worth being said aloud.”
“Don’t hold back for my sake.” Zander ran his palm up the side of her thigh. He smelled her interest in him but sensed something else, something below the surface of consciousness. Where he tethered his inner beast for everyone’s safety, she tethered herself out of what? Self-preservation? Propriety?
Fuck propriety, they had maybe a day left. In a quick shift, he swung her around and laid her out on the couch. Her squeal and flailing arms indicated he could have handled that with a bit more finesse. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t think.”
After the surprise faded from her face, her expression softened. “Clearly. I’m not a rag-doll to be tossed around—but now that you’ve got me, what will you do with me?”
His gaze passed over her in a lazy sweep. “Strip you and taste every inch of your flesh.”
“We can’t. I won’t put you in danger.”
“We aren’t allowed to have sex, but I’m a creative guy. There’s still plenty we can do to quench this hunger.”
“Zander, we don’t have to—”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure we do.” His palm traced curves of her tight knit top. The heat from her body seeped through the fabric and sparked a fire in his blood. He lifted her breasts to his mouth and buried his face in her cleavage. She squealed as he blew hot breath through the sweater’s fine weave. Another shift and his teeth closed around her nipple.
She wriggled, but he held her in place.
After she settled, he shoved her shirt over her shoulders and tossed it to the end table behind her. Their new position left her lace-covered breast right where he wanted it.
Every square inch of Austin’s flesh heated at once. The air, cool on her skin, tingled with raw sexual energy. The hair on her entire body rose. She rolled her hips, aching, undulating against Zander’s touch. There was no mistaking the power in him. He was dangerous. A silent menace.
Trouble was, she didn’t want to push him away. His lips touched her neck, his leather vest creaking as he shifted lower.
All thought stopped being logical when he slid his fingers into her pants and between her thighs. The moment he touched her core, his aura lit so she could see him again. “You are so warm and inviting, you know that?”
Austin hadn’t had many lovers, but even if there were hundreds, she knew none would rival Zander. Broad in the shoulders and tight through his abs, he possessed the muscled body of a fighting machine. All male. Virile. Demanding and passionate. She undid his belt and jeans and pulled him onto the couch beside her. She smiled, draped her leg across his, and pressed him against the couch cushions. “Now I’ve got you where I want you.”
His brow drew tight as he dipped his head and his mouth claimed hers. She arched her hips into his touch as his thumb rubbed a gentle circuit over her clit. The contact was electrifying. She gripped his erection and stroked him tight to her body. The vibration of his growl almost made her come.
“Sweet mercy,” she whispered as he stroked the length of her channel. Her blood turned to quicksilver. Too much. She shook, shuddering as the pleasure built and pulsed through her.
Zander shifted his shoulders, his fingers pressing inside her as his thumb kept up a relentless teasing. The cool air of the office met her heated flesh, adding another wave of sensation, leaving her trembling for release. “Zander, your turn first.”
“Oh, not yet cowgirl, you feel too good.” He nipped at her neck as he sunk two fingers inside her. She focused on her grip, stroking him harder, faster. Listening to the catch in his breathing she knew he was close. She doubled her efforts. Arching against him, she clenched him in a tight fist. He liked a rough touch, his body reacting, stiffening as she tugged and stroked with all her strength.
He growled again, his hand shifting, increasing his pressure, rubbing, stretching her with long, strong fingers.
“Zander—” she gasped, biting his shoulder.
His orgasm hit like a light show. The energy he carried within him surged through her, filling her vision, detonating throughout her. Her core grabbed and clenched at his fingers, her greedy pulsing, clamping down as they exploded in a shared release.
Zander threw his head back as warm streams jetted onto his belly and over her hand. His stomach tightened, his muscles quaking as she milked every ounce of his release. When he fell still, she laid against him, spent.
“What was that?” Zander asked, his voice not yet his own. “What did you do to me?”
Austin chuckled, understanding exactly how he felt. “That was different. Electric.”
“Electric is right.” Zander kissed her lips and dragged in a steadying breath. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Rolling off the couch, he walked across the room. She heard him open a cabinet and then return, towel in hand. Lounging on the couch next to her, he wiped her hands and stomach clean. “Thank you for that. That was—”
“Zander,” Jules said, stepping into the room, “you know how you owe me one.” Jules voice cut off as her steps froze mid-stride. “Oh, Christ. Shit. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Sorry.”
“Jules, stop.” Zander handed Austin her the sweater. Once it was back in place, he shifted to the couch edge. “Jules. Turn around. What do you need?”
“Never mind. I’ll find someone else.”
“Jules.” Zander’s voice resonated with authority.
Jules shifted her weight and exhaled. “My middle boy broke his arm at lacrosse tonight. Rayvn’s stuck at the fracture clinic. Andrew’s home with Jared, but I need to leave. Thing is, with Ray at the hospital I’ve got nobody to walk me. I’d walk it myself, but with everything that’s happened, he wants me escorted. He made me swear I’d ask you to see me home.”
“And I will,” Zander said. “Give us two minutes.”
“But you two are—I’m interrupting.”
“No argument,” Zander said. “Austin and I will see you home. Stetson could use the walk as well. Call Kyrian and fill him in. He’ll have to come back and mind the store.”
“But it’s not—”
“Jules. It’s done. Go call Kyrian.”
The door clicked shut. Zander stood and started pacing.
“What’s wrong, angelman? Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, “other than a hard-on the size of Texas. I have no idea what you do to me, but I could go again right now. I certainly can’t go out in public like this.”
She bit her lip to stop from laughing. “So, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about dead demons and diving into Lake Ontario in February.” He strode around the room, his knuckles cracking as he moved. After a moment, he returned and placed her hand against his fly. “Any better?”
Austin burst out laughing, rubbing the bulge in his jeans. “The CN Tower will be jealous.”
He growled. “This is so not funny. I’m a feared entity—a legend of punishment. It’s your fault I’m about to throw wood in front of my staff. The least you could do is fake some remorse.” His scowl faltered, and he too started to laugh.
She straightened. “Okay. How about a jacket?”
“It’s a million degrees outside.”
“A cook’s apron?”
“Not helping.”
“A man purse.”
He glared. “Like I’d have one of those.”
She got off the couch and walked along the wall to where Zander hung his leather jacket behind the door. She felt two coats and his leather vest. She picked a three-quarter length, lambskin blazer. “I’m back to jacket.”
“That’s Kyrian’s. I’m a biker jacket and chains kind of guy.”
She ran her finger down his bursting fly and kissed his scowl. “A motorcycle jacket won’t cover this.”
Sliding his palms over the rounds of her ass, he ground against her. His lips moved over hers, slowly at first but gaining enthusiasm. He was addictive. After a minute, she pulled back and shook her head. “That was your fault, not mine.”
He shrugged his vest on first and then the jacket. After snapping the bottom two buttons, he grabbed her hand and headed for the door. “Let’s get Stetson. And stop laughing.”