CHAPTER 4
Eden came to with a start. She sat up on a delicately crocheted bedspread. Her bed. The iron lamp curved to resemble a lotus flower on the nightstand glowed over her stack of artist’s color charts. “How’d I get here? Who—?”
Reality rushed upon her like a tsunami wave and she toppled against the pillow, but this time she didn’t faint—because a man stood in her bedroom doorway. Tall, dark and confused, he was the most appealing thing she’d seen in months.
“You fainted,” he offered.
“No kidding? Whew!” Eden sat up and smoothed down her shirt. “It’s been a day, hasn’t it?” She glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling window, which looked out over Central Park. It was dark, yet the city’s innate glow beamed upward. The clock verified it was almost eleven. “How long have I been out?”
“A few hours. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“That was kind of you. After what I’ve been through—”
“It gave me time to walk the layout of your home.”
“Oh. So it wasn’t concern. You needed to case the joint. Find anything you want?”
“I have no intent to steal from you, my lady. Though I did find this in a kitchen drawer.” He waved a small stack of one-hundred-dollar bills before him. “I may need some cash while I’m here on earth. Mind if I take it?”
“You just said you don’t steal.”
“I’m asking. Thieves do not ask.”
“Yes, whatever. Take it if you need it. It’s the petty cash I leave for my maid, Rosalie, to pick up things. I’ll replenish it tomorrow.”
Eden reached to scratch her forearm and Ashur dove onto the bed, grabbing her hand and trapping it against his chest. His body so close to hers had her heartbeat tripping. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been more frightened by a stranger’s presence—and more intrigued.
Looking away, he released her arm and slid off the bed. “Don’t scratch,” he said. “Not until I give you the go-ahead. Forgive me, my impropriety overwhelms the need for your protection.”
“I understand.” Actually she didn’t understand a thing. Exhaustion had tapped her neurons to the core.
Shoving her forearm between her thighs didn’t quell the need to scratch. “I think I’ll take a shower. I feel like crap after today’s adventure. Maybe the water will relieve the itch. Is that okay? You’re not going to stand guard outside the bathroom, are you?”
“I dare not. I will wait for you out in the main quarters.”
“That would be the living room.”
“Appropriately named. Please come find me when you feel ready. We have much to discuss.”
Soon as the door closed, Eden stripped off her blouse and skirt and made a beeline for the bathroom. The glass-walled shower was her favorite place to escape the real world. Sound was muffled in here and the only sensation was the pressure of water upon her skin.
She always headed straight to the shower after a day spent at a charity event or amongst a crowd. Most people thought she had it all being rich. She wouldn’t knock it, but having it all did not imply material wealth to her. All was something ineffable that could only fit into her heart.
The hot water rinsed away the dirt and shivers but it didn’t chase away the subtle tingling where the angel had licked her.
“An angelkiss,” Eden muttered as she dried herself off with a thick terry-cloth towel, being careful to avoid the mark. “And he’s after me because he wants to get busy with me? I don’t want to have sex with a bad angel and become the mother of the apocalypse.”
Resting her palms on the marble vanity, she took a couple of deep yoga breaths to settle her growing tension. Water from her hair dripped down her arms and puddled on the floor. Her reflection echoed how tired she was. Rarely did she get shadows under her eyes like tonight.
But it was more than that.
If Ashur had told her the truth, she was in deep trouble. How did she dare escape an angel? Zaqiel possessed supernatural abilities, as she’d already seen. She was no match. And her only choice was to trust the man who called himself an angel slayer. What was that exactly? Was he human?
Had she garnered her own personal guardian angel?
“I hope so.” Because she didn’t want the white-haired guy getting close enough to lick her again. And if he had his way, he’d get close enough to have sex with her.
It had been over a year since she’d shared her body with a man. That had ended disastrously. And yet she had been able to put that event on a shelf only recently, and had begun dating again. Dating, but still no sex. Not that she didn’t want it.
But what she craved now was something entirely different than she was accustomed to dating.
Like a sexy, rock-hard-abs guardian angel.
He was the opposite of everything she’d ever found sexy in a man. Pure muscle and might. Commanding. And a bit arrogant, too. And she wanted it all.
Damn.
Dressing in black silk pajama bottoms and top, Eden wanted to crawl between the sheets and lose herself in her dreams, but she didn’t think Ashur had left. She slipped on her marabou slippers and clicked out to the living room.
He sat on the couch, back straight and body tight as if he didn’t dare relax. A potted aloe vera plant sat on his lap. She almost laughed, until he sprang up and his eagerness startled her.
“Aloe Barbadensis,” he said, thrusting the pot toward her. “It is an ancient plant for healing. I marvel you have such. It is good the plant has survived the ages. You can put it on the angelkiss.”
The plant was used to relieve itching and rashes, but Eden had never had the need to try it. Todd had given it to her. Despite the lush acreage of plants she kept in the apartment she had furnished in the Art Nouveau style, he’d decided she needed something more functional, and with spines. Todd was always trying to get her to reveal her inner vixen. He’d certainly growl over Ashur.
“Try it,” Ashur prompted. He broke off the tip of a thick leaf, and set down the pot. Squeezing the cool liquid from inside the plant, he stroked it across her flesh and spoke quietly. “The women wear trousers now.”
“Pants, yes.” He’d said he was new to this world.
“I intend to learn all tonight. While you sleep I will walk the world and assimilate its speech, customs and ways.”
“The whole world? You’d better have some comfortable shoes.”
He tilted his head, wondering at her.
“A joke.”
“That word is not in my knowledge.”
“You’ll understand after you’ve assimilated, I’m sure.” She inspected the glob of clear aloe on her arm. It did quell the desire to scratch.
“So I really do need to sleep. I thought I was exhausted after worrying about the gallery showing for a week, but being chased by an angel tops that. Will I be okay all alone? If the angel found me earlier, why can’t he find me now?”
“You haven’t scratched the angelkiss?”
“No.”
“Then you should be safe. The beacon is only activated with irritation. When you scratch you send out a signal only the Fallen can track.”
“Like pheromones?”
“I do not know that word, either.”
She nodded. “It’s an attraction thing innate in all of us.” And, man, was she feeling it right now.
“Attraction. Like lust?”
“Exactly.” The corner of his mouth curled. Eden had to consciously warn herself against touching the crease. Damn, they were making rescuing knights attractive these days. “So, you don’t know things? I suppose not, if you’ve been out of touch for so long.”
“I knew things, and then that knowledge was taken from me through time and—It is not important. Perhaps you should wrap a bandage about your forearm to keep it from brushing against the bed linens. Would you like me to stay and watch over you while you sleep?”
“No, uh…no. I’m a big girl.” A handsome man leaning over her while she slept? Talk about a fantasy! “No, that’s not a good idea. I don’t know you. You staying the night would be major awkward.”
He shrugged. Obviously he didn’t know. “I will return in the morning. Sleep well, Six.”
He strode toward the front door, leaving Eden wishing she could call him back, but not daring to speak the words.
Big girls didn’t invite strange men to watch over them while they slept. They could invite them to snuggle, though. But Eden suspected her knight wasn’t the snuggly sort. And she wasn’t in the right mindset to make decisions regarding sex right now.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was in the best frame of mind she’d been in for years.
Angels?
Finally.
* * *
The night moved swiftly through his brain, the world even faster. Ashur walked in a hurried pace innate to the Sinistari—they termed it flashing—from New York to California and then on to Japan, Russia, France, Africa and all the countries in between.
He listened to voices speaking, observed the customs, tasted the food, watched the transportation and analyzed the education. Knowledge permeated the costume of mortal flesh he wore and insinuated into his steel marrow.
The palette of sin the world offered had grown immeasurably since his last stay on earth.
In Las Vegas Ashur learned the pleasures of gambling. He stole a fine pair of sunglasses out of an Aston Martin in Madrid then took the car for a joyride. He inhaled opium in a dark, musty cave in Andalusia with the locals, and learned to fire an AK-47 at a wall of broken bottles outside a Palestinian army base.
Fast food in Berlin awakened his palate to the strangely tasty idea of processed food. Gluttony led him to a Chipotle restaurant three times during the night, each time in a different state. Man, did he love tacos.
He followed a diamond thief in Milan and snatched the prize for himself, then scattered the five-carat stones in the Atlantic Ocean as he crossed to Iceland.
He was Sinistari. Sin ran through his black blood.
He held the world within him now. He knew all.
By all that was sacrilege in the dark sea Beneath, the world had changed vastly. And that parts of it frightened even him was not a good feeling. The weapons were fascinating, but he could not condone putting them in the hands of children. And lust was always entertaining, but it became a sickness when viewed obsessively on the computer.
Among the evil though, yet walked goodness and integrity. Ashur was no creature of prayer, but a wish for world sanity came to his lips before he could question the unnatural concern.
He’d also gained the ability to form emotion. It wasn’t necessarily a boon to his mission, but it was unavoidable as he imbued his being with the human experience.
Ashur now saw some things in color instead of the bland grays he’d been experiencing. Not all of it, mostly the food (which he devoured) and the women’s clothing (which he desired; the women, not the clothing) and the material objects that fascinated him, such as sports cars and yachts and those fancy little iPods.
Music! How it had changed over the centuries. It was now a literal world compacted into each song. He enjoyed it all but especially the orchestral pieces and the stuff called heavy metal. Though how the little device worked puzzled him. He hadn’t the time to take one apart, but soon.
He’d acquired a pair of worn black jeans from a street seller in Paris because he liked the snug, comfortable fit. A woven long-sleeved shirt appealed to his burgeoning need for touch and to experience all the sensations of texture, weight and temperature against his skin. He retained the biker boots and black leather jacket.
Back at Six’s building, he approached her door and slid his palm over the carved wood surface. He recognized the artistic style of the carvings now: Art Nouveau. It had flourished at the end of the nineteenth century, as had absinthe, can-can and opium. Six’s entire apartment was decorated in the style. He admired craftsmanship.
Prepared to knock, he noticed the door was open a crack. He had learned mortals in the twenty-first century did not leave their doors open or unlocked. Something must be wrong.
He pushed the door inside and entered stealthily, pressing a shoulder to the wall as he scanned down the hallway. He didn’t sense Six, but something inside had a pulse.
Could Zaqiel be here? Angels and demons had no pulse, but Ashur could sense the Fallen’s presence in the vibrations that shuddered his rib cage when close to an angel, yes, even one fallen from His grace.
“Let him be here,” he muttered lowly. “Attempting his muse.”
Reaching behind his hip, he unclasped the leather sheath and drew out Dethnyht.