CHAPTER 27
“It’s about time he left you alone long enough for me to slip in.” Zaqiel stood before her, less than a hands-width between them.
The disturbing lack of kindness in his voice only ratcheted up Eden’s adrenaline. She gripped the sink behind her, her knuckles tightening. There were no knives in the sink; they were beneath the plates, drying on the towel.
Zaqiel was different now than when she’d seen him at the gallery. Now he looked only half human and half…She didn’t know what.
Iron armor studded with spikes and gray feathers sat on his shoulders like football gear. Or maybe it was his shoulders. And the feathers weren’t soft and fluffy, but rather fashioned of fine wire.
The iron swept down across his ribs in slashes that gave wonder if it were a part of his flesh. Tight steel abs were etched with a black tattoolike design Eden did not recognize, but she could guess it wasn’t the Boy Scout emblem. It looked demonic with the five-pointed star in the circle. But how could that be?
His leather pants looked like some kind of liquid metal and resembled muscled sinews clamped together with strands of silver chain.
“Look all you like, Eden. You’re mine.”
“Don’t say my name,” she hissed. That she’d the audacity to speak to him bolstered her confidence. “I’m Six to you.”
“Six, sex, it all sounds bloody delicious.”
She realized with a gasp he was in the form Ashur had said was necessary to have sex with her. Half angel, half human.
“Pity your demon lover didn’t refresh those wards. The fellow invited me to dinner with open arms, so to speak.”
Eden swallowed and eyed the halo over Zaqiel’s shoulder. If it could be used as a weapon, could she wield it?
He caught her focus and turned. “Ah! What in blazes are you doing with one of those? Such pretties are not for human consumption.”
The halo didn’t glow blue when he touched and sniffed it. “Is it yours?” she asked. Slowly she walked her fingers along the countertop toward the drying dishes and knives.
“Mine? Hell no. It only glows for the one it loves, darling. I’ll be damned if I can find mine. Would like to. It would serve as a nifty weapon. Not so sure I need the soul, though. Mortal death is so vulgar.”
It glowed for the one it loved? Meaning…the one it belonged to. The few times Eden had seen it glow Ashur had also been present. Did it belong to him? If so, it held his earthbound soul.
“You know vampires are looking for these things? Bloody fang-faces.” He twanged the halo with a snap of his finger, then danced back to her and stuck his face into her personal space. The spike piercing his lip wobbled as he spoke. “You know what I’m here for,” he said matter-of-factly. “So let’s get to it before loverboy returns, eh? It doesn’t take long, and I promise I won’t hurt you…too much.” He preened the feathers on one shoulder; the fine black filaments glowed blue on the tips as his fingers stroked over them. “We can do it here where there’s lots of room for my wings to stretch out. I think I’ll pin you to that wall.”
Eden whipped her arm about, slamming his head with the plate she’d grabbed. It shattered against his skull. Zaqiel yelled, which provided enough distraction for her to slip past him and run for the front door. If the wards were broken she wasn’t about to stick around and trap herself inside with a horny angel.
The Fallen stood before the door. Her palms slapped his steel chest. The contact stung and reverberated up her arms.
A flick of his tongue snaked out at her. “I’m going to make you itch all over.”
Clamping her head between his hands, he licked along her cheek and up across her forehead. A hot burn bloomed in his wake.
Eden kicked and struggled but he held her easily. His tongue traced her jaw. And then she was airborne, slung over his arms and cradled as he ran up the stairs and into her bedroom.
“Changed my mind. We’re going to throw in some romance with the deal. Have you any rope?” he asked, tossing her onto the bed as if a discarded pillow.
Eden scrambled off, but again, he beat her to the door. “Ah, you should know I am quicker than air.”
He slammed his forearm against her throat, pinning her to the door. “Not funny, pretty one. And if you’re not nice to me I think I will feed you to the vampires. I promise you’re going to like angel sex much better than demon sex. You think he’s got something you want? Wait until you see what I have for you.”
“You have no feeling,” she countered. “Sex is merely a task for you.”
“Do you see me arguing? Feeling or not, I’m in for the prize. But oh, correction—I can get pleasure from a muse.”
“I’m not your muse!”
“Doesn’t matter. After I’ve done my match, the rest of you are up for grabs.”
“What would He think of you?” she cried.
The statement stopped him momentarily. “No, no no, not going to get me with that one. I do miss Him. But He abandoned me.”
“Because you fell.”
“Because He was not as loving as you mortals would care to believe. Care to partake in holy ablutions with me, muse?”
“I can’t carry a child to term!”
Zaqiel scoffed. “Certainly no mortal child. But my progeny? Oh, yes!”
One slash of his arm sent her soaring onto the bed where she fell onto her stomach and face. Eden struggled with what to do, how to flee. Where was Ashur? Before she could think, she was quickly wrangled and her wrists tied to the headboard with the belt Zaqiel drew out from his belt loops.
Ashur had promised to protect her. It was the only promise he had ever given her.
“I do love to play a bit before the holy event.” Zaqiel tugged the belt tightening her hand securely to the iron bedpost. “You ever see an angel in all his glory? No, of course you haven’t. It would render you senseless and you’d be dead, which would rule out any chance of you carrying my nephilim.”
“You can’t get all your glory up. You sacrificed that when you fell.”
“My, my, aren’t we a smarty-pants.”
“You’ve no wings. You can’t do this without them.”
“Heh, heh.” He stepped back and stretched out his arms. Tilting his head back, he then shrugged his shoulders.
Silver metal screamed out from his back and shoulders, stretching, growing, crashing through the window and tearing the plaster casements. The wings grew out thirty feet. Eden couldn’t see where they ended. They moved fluidly, bending near his back thanks to gears that rolled on oiled cogs.
Zaqiel leaned over her. “How about these wings, bitch?”
“Is that any way to speak to the future mother of your child?”
“Oh, I do like you.”
He twisted, and his wings, while folding, still cut through the wall as if a knife slicing through butter. The ceiling cracked and Eden worried more that she might be crushed by building materials than raped by an angel.
She screamed so loudly her voice cracked.
A dark figure landed crouched on the floor before the bed.
It straightened, flexing black steel arms bulging with smooth muscles forged of something dark and sinuous.
Ashur.