CHAPTER 22
The halo hunter startled at Pyx’s sudden appearance in front of him. She laughed when Donovan kept checking behind him as if to discern from where she had materialized.
“I have my talents,” Pyx said. She looked beyond the pair, hoping not to see a flash of Cooper’s white shirt and sexy kilt.
But if she could flash to the end of the tunnel that meant Cooper could flash inside whatever was beyond the medieval pair of doors she stood before. If that’s where the angelkiss led him, he may have no choice but to follow.
Don’t do it, Cooper. Just stay put. If you love me, you will.
“Where’s the Fallen?” Michael asked. “Did he flash with you?”
“It disturbs me a mortal knows so much about us,” Pyx said.
“I was baptized by fire, demon. I didn’t want the knowledge. It was shoved on me. So where is he?”
“I told him to wait above. I’m going to grab the muse and flash her somewhere Cooper won’t be able to find.”
The vampiress huffed. “Told you we couldn’t trust her.”
Pyx stepped before the woman and looked down her nose at the pitiful petite thing. “Don’t trust you either, vamp. That’s why I had Cooper stay behind. You’re not telling the truth, and that lie is going to get Cooper in a lot of trouble.”
“Bitch at me all you like. Won’t do you any good,” Vinny said with equal defiance. “The Fallen is already inside. I just heard him land.”
“What?”
Pyx turned and kicked the heavy door. Ramming a shoulder against the studded wood she shoved it until she met a wall.
Not a physical wall. Pyx leaned into the partly open door but her shoulder stopped in midair, crushing against something intangible, as if a wall. She punched a fist toward the door yet it met the same unseen blockade.
The vampire’s chuckle stabbed along the back of Pyx’s neck. Pyx spun around and swung a fist for the woman, but again she landed her knuckles against an invisible barrier.
The halo hunter took a penlight out of his pocket and flashed the blacklight across the floor. The beam revealed a ward marked in a chalk circle beneath Pyx.
“Demon binding spell,” Vinny said with far too much satisfaction. “Had to be done.”
The spell was strong. Pyx could feel the invisible walls hum in warning like an electrified fence. Both she and Cooper hadn’t trusted the vamp. So how could she have been so stupid now?
“You two were never in this to help Cooper,” she said. “You want him to get to his muse.”
“Don’t you?” Michael flicked the light toward her face. Pyx growled at the annoyance. “Thought you came here to slay the angel.”
“What I want is none of your damned business.” She hissed through clenched teeth and punched at the barrier with little result beyond making her knuckles sting. Stupid mortal flesh. And trapped inside a binding ring she couldn’t shift to demon form. “Release me!”
“Not until after the show.”
The vampiress pushed the metal-studded door inside to reveal Cooper lying prone on the floor. Out cold, he lay with arms stretched to the side and shirt torn to reveal his abdomen. The sigil on his side glowed blue.
Pyx couldn’t figure how that had happened. Why was he out? If he had flashed inside he would still be conscious.
“The vampires got him,” she decided and snapped a look at the grinning vampiress. “I thought you weren’t in the tribe?”
“I escaped tribe Anakim months ago. But I owed Antonio one. And I want to walk in the daylight. It’s nothing against the angel. We all act for survival. This is my only means to a better life.”
Her boyfriend hugged her and nodded in agreement.
“He’ll destroy the muse, and not because he wants to—because, damn it, he does not want to—but because he’s compelled to.”
“The vampires will grab the muse before the Fallen can harm her,” Michael offered in what he must have thought a reassuring voice. “They have to keep her alive to give birth to the nephilim. We’ll release the binding spell as soon as he’s done.”
“Done,” Pyx said on a gasp.
She peered inside the cavernous room. Done, as in, have his way with the muse against her will.
The binding spell held her imprisoned. She was helpless.
A glance at her lover, lying prone on the floor, ripped at her steel heart. A heart that Cooper had touched. If the damned chunk of metal could beat it would surely beat for him. She clasped a hand over her chest.
The glowing sigil on Cooper’s gut pulsed faster. It sensed the muse nearby. And the angel Juphiel’s instincts would not allow Cooper to disregard the need to mate.
“Oh, Cooper, please fight it. You can do it, I know you can resist. For us.”
* * *
Cooper slapped a palm on the icy stone floor. He bent a leg and pulled himself up to a kneeling position. His head ached. How had he been knocked out so easily by the vampires? It had felt like thousands of volts shocking through his system.
It’s that damned chip or tracking device or whatever it is they implanted in you. It had reacted to whatever they’d used on him. He felt like a cow must feel after it had been prodded, only to the tenth power.
Now his body hummed minutely. Stirred, actually. Something was not right. He slapped a palm to his abdomen. The sigil burned against his flesh. It was a cold burn. Ethereal. Yet wrong.
Or maybe something was very right.
He scanned the room, walled in cement—no, it was stone, perhaps carved from the very earth? He hadn’t thought they’d descended so far underground.
A life-size painting of him was propped against one wall. And on the painting his sigil had been traced over in red. Blood. It had been used in a summoning ritual, he was sure of it. The vampires had brought him to earth to complete the goal of his original fall.
As his eyes tripped over the rough-hewn walls, Cooper’s breathing increased and he thought he felt his heart pulse.
He slid a palm over his chest. As hard and adamant as time itself, his heart would never change form or substance—unless he found his halo.
But now he remembered. There was something else he sought. Not purposefully, yet instinctually. In fact, he felt its presence. He had marked it with an angelkiss.
He roved his gaze along the front of a stone dais and tripped over a delicate hand. Cooper’s heart dropped to his gut.
The muse clung at the dais edge, kneeling, her eyes frantic at sight of him. A chain ran from one wrist to a bolt on the wall. Her gorgeous ink-black hair hung in tousled waves and one shirtsleeve was torn to reveal her shoulder. Soft, pale flesh that smelled…
Cooper lifted his head and sniffed. Rose perfume. Coffee beans. The heady lure of fear. So sweet. Like nothing he’d ever had before and like everything he must possess.
Do not harm her. You know the vampires want this. Fight it!
Stretching his neck and rolling his head from side to side he momentarily agreed with his conscience—he, Cooper Truhart, would not harm Sophia—but then instinct overwhelmed rationality. The angelkiss screamed to him.
She was his muse. Her name mattered little. Nor did the ridiculous mortal name he’d chosen for himself.
Juphiel the Fallen must have her—now. The urgent sensation crept up his legs, mobilizing him to stand.
Walking forward, every step he took made the muse scramble backward until she was glued to the wall at shoulders and hips. Shaking her head frantically, but unable to speak, her teary brown eyes silently pleaded against his most base and darkest compulsion. Her neck was red, raw where she must have scratched the angelkiss. The beacon called to him.
The angel’s footsteps trudged laboriously across the floor as he fought against that compulsion. Muscles stiffening and jaw clenched, Cooper for a moment managed to stop.
Turn around. Walk away.
He could not move his hips, but he could turn his head.
A gorgeous redheaded demon stood in the doorway to this dismal chamber. Her head shook left to right. Her bright eyes were shadowed.
Why did she simply stand there? He needed her to do her job.
“Do it!” Cooper shouted to the demon. “Stop me!”
Another footstep brought him to the dais. The muse screamed. The agonizing sound echoed in his skull but did not dissuade the Fallen angel, Juphiel.
Where were the vampires? Cooper could smell their greedy observance. They lurked, yet he suspected they would not show themselves until the wicked deed had been accomplished.
He jumped onto the dais. Want her. Must have her.
Can’t do it in human form.
Every muscle stretching his body began to shiver. The bones from waist up began to shift. Cooper knew transformation would occur without his volition.
He slapped his palms to either side of the muse’s head. His body shook, but he controlled the urge to hurt her. It took all his resolve to hiss out, “I do not want to harm you. I cannot control myself. Listen to me. You will have one chance. I will break the chains. Then run! Do you understand?”
She nodded frantically. So pretty. Sophia of the lush dark hair and wide, wanting eyes. Don’t want to hurt her.
Take her.
“Resist,” he ground between his teeth, tasting bloody spittle.
Wings grew out between his shoulder blades. His flesh hardened. His form grew adamant yet sinuously flexible.
Cooper growled and smashed his glass fist upon the bolt where it connected to the wall. It dropped free. The heavy chain coiled at the muse’s feet. “Go!”
The muse stumbled on the chain. She landed on her knees and palms with a painful scream.
Completely shifted, Cooper yowled, stretching out his arms and wings and crying to the heavens above that the wicked pact he’d joined would now claim him in its dark truth.
The muse struggled to clasp the chain and bolt to her chest so she could run.
The angel Juphiel tilted his head, noting her trouble. He stomped a foot on the chain. “Not so fast, pretty.”