CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When the office door clicked shut, Austin’s heart sank. Whatever Kyrian said to Zander stopped her seduction plans before they even got out of the chute. She lifted her arms around his neck and tried to kiss away his tension. He didn’t kiss back.
“Zander, what is it?” He pulled back and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, well, I feel foolish.”
He cupped her jaw and rubbed his thumbs over her flaming cheeks. “No. You are perfection. Utter perfection.”
“Then what?”
He ran his hand down her arm in a slow sweep. “My resolve to keep things uncomplicated blew up in my face. Kyrian reminded me of a few things.”
“Like how a lowly human doesn’t belong with you?”
“Kyrian would never say that. He adores you.” Guilt stabbed her for saying something so unkind. Kyrian had fast grown to be a friend. None of this was his fault.
Zander kissed her forehead and pulled her back into his embrace. “Being Nephilim isn’t a choice. It’s our existence. Our purpose. We don’t get to want anything different. Hell, before you, I never did.”
“And now? Do you want more?”
His jaw clenched tight. “It doesn’t matter. There was never a question of whether this would end, just when.”
She blinked back the sting behind her eyes. “So you’re back to being the dutiful soldier? You’ll send me away without a fight? Give up on what this could be and ship me off?”
He shifted behind her, his hand clasping her throat as his erection pressed against her backside. “Don’t you dare make it sound like this is my choice. I’m fighting my desires with every ounce of strength I possess. If I wasn’t, I’d have already ripped this vest open and buried myself inside you.”
She gasped. His grip on her throat eased.
His hand splayed across her belly and trapped against his hips. “I want you so bad it vibrates in my head all damn day and night. My skin is aflame, tight over my bones. My blood races, and I ache granite-hard with inhuman lust.”
“I don’t want to forget you,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “That’s our reality. You have a life and I am duty bound to command this garrison.” His words rang firm and she knew he’d made up his mind.
She broke free from his embrace. “Fine. Ship me away so you can kill bad guys with your band of brothers. Without you in my head, I’ll settle down with someone and you can lay awake above your sex club alone and miserable.”
He reached for her, but she swatted his hands away.
“You have your brothers, right, men who’ve had your back since the creation of time? That’s not love, Zander. You don’t even know how to love someone—”
His body’s light burst brighter. “Not true. I loved my sister. When she died, part of me died with her.”
Austin froze. The desperation in his tone mirrored her own childhood loss. “What happened?”
“The humans in our village sensed I was different. They stoned us in the town square—surprise, I didn’t die. I felt each strike of stone to flesh. My bones broke. My blood ran. But death never came. When they realized I couldn’t be killed they branded me a daemon and cast me out of the city.”
Austin breath caught. “What did you do?”
“I hid in the back of hay wagons for days and weeks, until I made it to a town far enough away that rumors of the Kish demon wouldn’t follow. I spent weeks on the streets begging for food and finally, the mistress of a bathhouse took pity on the starvation ravished whelp I’d become. She fed and clothed me in exchange for servitude.”
“What kind of servitude?”
“Whatever she needed.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “A servant, a slave to be whipped, and when I got older . . . a body to be used by her clientele.”
The air rushed from her lungs. With no idea who he was, he must have been so alone. The violation. The hopelessness. “And the archangels didn’t come for you, even then?”
He shook his head. “When it got bad my mistress plied me with drugs and years passed in a haze. At sixteen, a warrior of the Powers came for me. I swore I’d never forget those who felt thrown away and despised for things they had no control over.”
And that was why he ran the club.
“Niobe did nothing but raise her little brother after childbirth killed our mother. She was innocent. She died because of what I was. I would have changed places with her a thousand times if I could have. I loved her.”
Austin felt numb. “When I was a kid a mudslide pushed our truck off the road and into the river. My mother and younger brothers drown. Everyone said it was a miracle I survived. I knew should have died with them.”
“It sucks to be the survivor, but that’s the way things played out for both of us. You can’t blame yourself.”
“I did blame myself . . . now I blame you.”
He blinked a couple times looking baffled. “What? Why?”
She glared. “If Nephilim are bound to save humans, where the hell were you or Kyrian or Danel or any of the warriors from other garrisons when we were being dragged down the river? My mother devoted her whole life to her faith. My brothers were sweet boys who never lived long enough to go to junior high or kiss a girl.”
Zander tried to pull her closer, but she wouldn’t have it. “Cowgirl, you’ve seen what we do. We don’t hover over humanity. We’re damage control. We do what we’re called upon to do, but the ways of the Divine are not ours to question.”
“The ways of the Divine?”
“The First Family, The Creators, The Balance—call them what you will, but you have to believe—”
“My mother believed,” she snapped. “Stuck in the cab of that truck she rhymed off every prayer ever heard. She begged for us to be saved, pleaded to be taken in place of her babies.”
“You were saved.”
Her anger flashed. “Everyone said the flood came at us like an act of God. Why? Why my family?”
Zander’s face came into sharp focus. “I don’t know.”
“I convinced myself it was a random, pointless event. I learned to accept that. Then a freak rodeo accident left me blind. Daddy raised me the best he could but ranching is a hard life and he died too young. And then, when I think I’ve got a handle on things, you come along and your prophecy tears that apart too. Your Divine wants me to suffer. Why? What’ve I done to deserve this?”
Zander tried once again to pull her into his arms. This time she couldn’t muster the strength to push him away. She sank against his chest with an ease that spoke of how far they’d come in three days, and how this would shatter her when it ended.
Gentle fingers brushed loose hair from her face.
She looked up at him, rested her palm against the scruff of his jaw. “I hate not having a say in my own life.”
He was silent for a long time.
When he lowered his lips, she met him halfway, their joining gentle and sad. This was their end. Their last chance at goodbye. She’d known by the look on Kyrian’s face when he’d left the room, Zander was sending her back.
“I don’t want to forget,” she said.
“Then we have to make this memorable. Prophesy be damned.”
She wanted him too—a proper sendoff—but she didn’t want him damned. “Promise me if somethin’ happens, you’ll stop. I mean it. I don’t want you dyin’ on me. You weigh a ton. You’ll crush me.”
He chuckled and brushed a tear from her cheek. “I swear it.”
She tugged his t-shirt from his jeans and over the muscled ridges of his ribs. He shifted his shoulders so she could pull it over his head.
His jeans flopped to the ground and he stepped free of them. He claimed her lips, strong arms tightening around her as her feet came off the floor. He carried her to the desk and swiped across the surface. Everything crashed to the floor and he laid her out flat. His fingers grasped the two sides of her suede vest pearl snaps popped in rapid fire as he ripped it open.
Zander grinned. “I’ve been fantasizing about you on this desk. The chaps and vest didn’t even cross my mind, but wow.”
The hunger in his eyes ignited a wild heat in her blood.
Mercy, he was a vision. Everything about him set her on fire. From his preternatural strength to his violently guarded vulnerability. She saw through his alpha bravado to the boy behind the warrior. The boy abandoned and judged. She saw him and she knew what he needed to hear.
“You are my heart, Zander Ambrose. I may not be able to keep you, but I want you to know. No matter what our worlds say or what happens next, I love you.”
Her finger pressed against his lips cutting off his response. Words couldn’t change things. All they had was this. The dark storm burning in his eyes said he knew it too. He dropped his mouth to her throat. He explored her, ravishing, worshipping her body as if he were memorizing every nuance.
She pushed all thought from her mind and focused on the moment.
He lifted her feet, removed her boots and tossed them to the floor. She giggled as he squeezed her bare feet and kissed her toes one by one. The expression on his face was enough to bring her to release. He eyed the chaps covering the outside of the legs and growled. He traced the cowhide against her flesh and she knew they weren’t going anywhere.
His tongue made a quick sweep of his lips as his palms slid to the inside of her thighs. He pressed her legs open. She gave herself over to him with an ease that embarrassed her. Never had she been the girl who got dizzy because her lover kissed her deep. Zander was different.
His mouth against her panties brought a rush of delicious heat—even before he blew against her core. He nipped and nuzzled at the silk barrier, teasing and tormenting. A yank at her hips brought the rending of fabric. Her underwear gave way and his tongue parted her, sliding slick against slick.
On a cry, she stiffened. Her fingers clamped the desk edges.
Zander laved her, the rasp of his chin brushing her flesh. Her hips arched hard and his palms locked onto her thighs. He pinned her against his mouth, penetrating, suckling against her clenching muscles. He spread her legs wider, marking her memory as sure as he was marking his claim.
She would never forget him—
Lifting her head, she opened her eyes. He stared up at her, watching her breasts surge as struggled to breathe. His entire being glowed. His moan vibrated through her core and she shattered. Her release was still pulsing through her when a gentle pull brought her hips to the end of the desk, Zander poised between her legs.
Straightening he wiped his glossy lips and slicked his erection. His hips pressed forward, stretching her wide as her muscles gripped and released in greedy pulls. He groaned as his blunt head parted her. He filled her slowly, his gaze locked where they joined. “Look at you,” his voice cracked, and his brow grew tight, “so beautiful, glistening and wet.”
Buried to the hilt, his breath let out in a rush. He listed forward to her breast, his arms bracing his weight on the desk. Sucking on her nipple, he lashed the tight tip with his tongue while thrusting inside her.
The squeal that pierced the room made her frown.
Oh, Zander’s punishing thrusts were skidding his desk across the floor. She didn’t care as long as they didn’t end up in the hall. Adjusting his footing, he gripped her waist.
Possessive. Relentless. The sex took on a momentum of its own. He wasn’t gentle. His body took from her. Overpowered. Demanded. She loved it. Loved the feeling dainty and feminine when he held her.
Loved him.
As that reality coalesced within her, he scooped her up and brought her chest against his. His hold was solid, crushing her soft curves against his rigid muscle. Rough fingers laced into her hair, pulled her lips to his. She locked her ankles around his hips. They moved as one, him carrying her weight with an ease that spoke of his Otherworldly strength.
Pressing her back against the molded surface of the door, he gripped the backs of her thighs and began to move. Slick from the sex they’d already had, he struck an urgent rhythm and she thought she might faint from the pleasure.
Sex beyond the extreme.
He rode her hard, crushing their bodies together until a throaty shout ripped from his chest and his hips locked in the grip of release. Shuddering, he pinned her to the door his body trembling as his release filled her.
She wanted to believe he loved her too but knew he was never free to them a chance. Her inner muscles milked him as he collapsed against her.
They’d been doomed before they even started.
In a corner booth of the club, Danel minimized the windows he’d been studying and closed his laptop. What did it all mean? There was more to all this. He could feel it. Maybe if he could talk to Zander and his pet human, he might be able to figure out why they bonded the way they did. If he could understand that, maybe he’d be able to break that connection before Raphael sent her away.
He could also ensure nothing like this infected anyone else.
He checked his watch. Almost time. He didn’t want to miss the show upstairs. This had to be handled properly. The last thing they needed was Zander pining away for a woman while hell knocked on their door.
The archangels should never have left her here in the first place. They should’ve separated the two, consequences be damned. That woman disrupted everything about their lives. He felt it, down to the cold steel in his bones.
He tucked his laptop under his arm and got moving. His feet were lead and his head pounded. Prophesy, prognostications, and predictions, fuck, could they ever just spell it out? He’d been staring at scrolls and screens day and night. Even when he closed his eyes, text, and hieroglyphs and Sanskrit danced behind his lids.
And Zander? Instead of focusing on the coming Darkworld storm and what killed Tanek, he was ass-over-ears infatuated with the little Texan harbinger of doom.
Slamming through the swinging door beside the server’s station, he marched straight through the stainless-steel alley in the kitchen and headed toward Z’s office. He never pegged the Sumerian for the hearts and flowers bullshit or for getting led around by his cock.
“You’re too late,” a female said. “They just left.”
Danel stopped, his hand hovering over the handle of the office door. He turned toward the women’s change room and recognized the owl tattoo more than the blonde femme fatale standing there, eyeing him. He forced himself not to react. It was the cage girl always sexed-up and throwing signals. Not to him specifically—them. It could be any one of them. She was a chaser, the type who targeted a trophy male who could change her life and secure her future.
Yeah, good luck with that. He continued with the handle.
She scowled. “Not you too? Austin said you didn’t like her. I’d hoped at least one of you could see through all that fake Texas twang.”
Danel opened his way into the office and figured out the female’s problem PDQ. Behind the closed office door, the air hung ripe with the scents of sex. A lot of sex. Zander’s desk had been cleared in a hurry and all his office shit peppered the floor. Stupid. Well, if he survived the deed, maybe now that Z had tasted the goods, he’d be able to get her out of his system.
He stepped back into the hall and closed the door behind him. The ocular daggers the blonde threw from her glitter-caked eyes were wholly unattractive.
He sighed. He would have preferred Zander and his brunette not be intimate, but if warnings meant nothing and urges needed to be satisfied, at least it had come to an end. Raphael would arrive at nightfall.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asked.
“I’m getting off in a few minutes.” Her predatory gaze glided over him. “You could get off a few minutes after that.”
She reached out to touch his chest and he caught her wrist. “Not interested.”
The female laughed and shifted her hips. “Come on Danel, give me a try. I guarantee I’ll surprise you.”
He squeezed harder and leaned in. “You’ve got nothing I want. Nothing any of us want.”
She yanked back on her arm, but he held tight. Her eyes flared. “How is it, that you men don’t notice any woman for decades and then in three days, that bitch has all of you begging for her sweet cowgirl cunt?”
Danel tightened his grip until he felt her bones in his palm. “Clean out your locker, cage-girl. Consider your tight little ass tossed to the curb.”
“What? You don’t even work here.”
“Maybe not, but be thankful you just said that to me and not him. Now go.”
He released his hold and she smiled, rubbing her wrist. Like maybe she liked it rough. Pivoting, he spotted the redhead in charge of the front staff. “You,” he barked, “this bitch has fifteen minutes to get off the property before I drive my boot up her ass.”
He turned to the kitchen and the serving staff prepping for the night ahead. They froze in place and he growled. “And if anyone else has opinions about what goes on in the private lives of anyone here, you can follow her out the fucking door.”
Zander took pride in his work: whether running his club, protecting the lives of innocents, fighting with his brothers, or in his last moments with Austin . . . pleasuring her until she was nothing but a languid pool of utterly sated, stunningly naked female. In the case of the latter, he wished they had more time.
Pulling back the freight elevator screens, he escorted Austin into the granite and chrome shine of the outer foyer. For the hundredth time, her words played back in his head. “You are my heart, Zander Ambrose. I may not be able to keep you, but I want you to know.”
In that moment, every part of him, every single cell, wanted to claim her in return. He couldn’t. Just straight up couldn’t allow that to happen. His blood had pumped like acid burning through his veins and the hum in his head had grown to a deafening volume, but it wasn’t in the cards. He knew that and had held strong. He was a warrior, after all.
The victory of remaining in control—nothing but hollow.
The laughter and teasing that had filled his heart for the past hour imploded as they stood outside the entrance to the loft. Nephilim weren’t the airy-fairy type of angelic messengers. They were violent, animals designed to slaughter and kill. Though it went against his basic moral makeup, every instinct raging in his body burned to do just that. Kill to keep Austin.
Because that’s what you did when you loved someone.
And he did. He so did.
Archangels Michael, Auriel, and Raphael, lounged in his living room, sucking back his hundred-year-old Scotch and looking all sterile in white on white. Kyrian and the twins were there too. When he and Austin stepped into the room, they all straightened.
“Gentlemen.” Zander tried to sound calm but failed. It was a no-go to swallow past where his heart had lodged tight in his throat. “Excuse me, if I can’t say I’m glad to see you. I take it you’ve figured out how to bypass Austin’s unique sight?”
“We have,” Raphael said, rising to his feet.
Zander’s stomach squirreled like a motherfucker.
Frustration burned in Raphael’s eyes and Zander found that some consolation. If the guy was there to ruin his life, at least he had the decency to look upset. As the archangel stepped up, his nostrils flared and he scowled.
Zander shot him a warning glare. His and Austin’s sex life would not be discussed. Not with them. Not ever. If Raphael knew what was good for him, he’d drive that train straight through the station and keep on trucking.
Raphael cleared his throat. “The darkness within you has grown dangerously strong, Zandros. We must conclude this before your situation builds to an irreparable end.”
“Y’all don’t know what you’re talking about.” Austin slipped her hand into his palm.
“Sadly, we do, child,” Raphael said. “Not one among us is blind to the shift in him. Never has his energy been so unstable or volatile.”
Zander searched from one face to another and knew how this would play out. Though he was trying to keep a lid on his shit, his muscles twitched and his lungs burned. And then, just when he needed to exude calm in front of his superiors, his mark flared like a neon sign in a store window.
Shit where the hell was all the air in the room?
He pulled Austin to his side, meeting her pleading gaze. The thought of never smelling her flesh, never hearing her giggle in bed, never feeling the heat of their joining—
That was as far as his brain got before it shut down. He looked to his brothers. He couldn’t do this. He really couldn’t do this. “I’ll leave. If she can’t stay with me . . . I’ll forfeit my position. Kyrian can run the team. We’ll leave tonight.”
Raphael stiffened. “You would turn your back on your life? Your brothers? Your duty? You would choose her—”
“Not choose,” Zander snapped. “That’s what you’re missing here. It’s not a matter of choice. I realize she’s safer without me and I should let you wipe her memories. She deserves a normal human life. But there’s no choice in it for me. I can’t explain it. My heart never truly beat until the first time she looked into my eyes.” He cupped her face in his hands and wiped the tears glistening on her cheeks. “She is mine.”
There was a long silence while Zander lost himself in the depths of Austin’s hazels. How could they understand when he didn’t understand himself? How do you make someone see that your destiny, the very essence of your soul, is beyond anything they have ever experienced?
“Zandros,” Michael said, squeezing his shoulder. “I regret this. We regret it. Believe that. Nonetheless, our hands are tied.”
The thrum in his head exploded as a veil of anger dropped before his eyes. Red fury colored the archangel, the room, the fucking city. His mind snapped. He launched at Michael with all his might.
With the flick of a hand, Zander slammed onto his back, suffocating. The invisible force pinned him hard to the rug. It crushed his chest. Cut off the flow of oxygen to his lungs. A flurry of curses erupted. Arms and bodies flailed and grabbed. He didn’t care. They could kill him. He would die anyway.
“Enough,” Austin cried, her voice cutting through the din. She reached past the others, forced her way between men twice her size. She knelt over him and glared daggers at the room like the warrior he always knew her to be. “Stop this, now. All y’all, give us a minute to talk this through.”
“Talking won’t change—”
Austin turned on his sire with a ferocity that made his beast proud. “Listen here, Michael. You want me gone with minimal damage? Then stop kickin’ a man when he’s down. Where I come from, that’s just plain mean.”
The crowd moved into the dining room and the clink of glass coincided with Zander’s lungs opening. He sucked in giant gulps of oxygen and she rolled him onto his side.
Even before she spoke, the hopelessness in her gaze pierced his battered heart. She brushed a tangle away from his eyes. “Now don’t give me that look. I won’t have you die for me. Your people have laws and these men mean to enforce them.”
“Fuck the laws. I won’t lose you.”
She helped him sit up and leaned in close. “Now listen and listen good. My mama, my brothers, my sight . . . I never wanted to lose them, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did. Your laws aren’t set on a whim. Your bosses will kill to enforce them, so you have to let me go.”
The vision of her blurred behind the moisture burning in his eyes. He pushed back with everything he had left. Her thumb caught his tears and he died a little more.
“Your staff needs you, your men need you, and the folks you protect every night need you.” She wrapped her wrists around his neck and pulled his forehead forward to meet hers. “I need you to fight the darkness. Stand with your brothers and keep me safe from all the things I wish I never knew existed.”
He squeezed his eyes tight. Was she asking him to watch over her, love her from a distance like some obsessed angel stalker? When she left him, she’d take his soul. He might be able to continue killing daemons and helping innocents, but he would be empty. He would never stop wanting her, even knowing he could never have her.
He pulled her closer and rubbed his cheek against her silky hair. “The scriptures are wrong. It’s not love that will kill me. It’s losing it.”