CHAPTER 9
“I know you’re all having trouble believing Archangel has a darker side… but it’s true.” Talon pushed away from the wall and paced to the oak coffee table.
He scrubbed a hand over his black hair, finding the shortness of it weird and unsettling after it being long for so many months, and tried to figure out how he was meant to make them believe him.
“I’m not.” Bleu had all eyes swinging his way. “Sable thinks there is a rotten core to Archangel, and Olivia backed her up. I checked in with them before coming here.”
Sable. Olivia?
Talon must have looked as confused as he felt, because the jaguar said, “Sable was an Archangel hunter, but she’s slowly making moves to leave so she can be with her mate, the Third King. Olivia worked for them as a doctor, but now she’s mated to Prince Loren of the elves.”
So the prince had had an ulterior motive when working with Archangel. He had met his mate and had been pursuing her.
“Then Archangel went and captured Loke… although Sable was a little at fault there… but we got him out,” Bleu said and that seed of hope that had set root in Talon’s heart had a sudden burst of growth.
“Wait… you broke someone out of Archangel?” He stared at the elf male.
Who just shrugged, as if it was nothing. “We broke Loke out, and caused a little havoc. Were you there at the time?”
“I must have been… but I don’t remember it. When was this?” He searched his memories, but he couldn’t recall a time when there had been any trouble in the facility.
“Around four lunar cycles ago…”
Four months. Talon went back that far. It was all a blur now, but he still felt sure that if something major had happened at Archangel, he would have known about it.
He certainly would have noticed people breaking captives out of the cells.
His eyes slowly widened.
“Unless there were two,” he whispered and everyone looked at him as if he had lost his mind, including Sherry. He looked down into her eyes as she perched on the arm of the purple couch again, gathering his thoughts so he could explain himself and get his theory across. “Where I was being held… there was no break in… which means there has to be two cellblocks.”
“You were in their headquarters?” Bleu said and Talon nodded, remembered hearing people talking about it as their main facility in London and that a satellite building had been destroyed. The sick bastards had been excited about the captives from that facility being moved to their headquarters. The elf didn’t look convinced. “There’s only one cellblock there.”
Talon shook his head. “Only one that you saw. Where I was being held, it was below the structure, down a service lift. There were labs and a cellblock… white with glass fronts.”
“Like the cellblock we broke into.” Bleu arched a black eyebrow at him when he growled at the elf. “I am merely saying it as it is. The cellblock is white, with glass barriers. It is down some steps, off a corridor on the basement level.”
“No. It’s deeper than that. When I was taken there… and when I escaped… I used a service lift in the basement. It went deeper underground, to a facility there.”
“A separate facility?” Sherry looked from him to Bleu. “Would Sable know anything about it?”
He shook his head. “I never saw one in the entire time I was in Archangel, and Sable never mentioned one… but I can ask her. If she doesn’t know, then the only possible reason would be that Archangel commanders are keeping it secret for some reason.”
A secret facility.
Talon didn’t like the sound of that.
Was there another side to Archangel, an organisation with a dark agenda hidden within the one who declared themselves dedicated to protecting the innocent fae, immortals and demons?
He had a flash of the facility, and of a thick steel door at the end of a corridor near the cage that had three different security locks and had been guarded by two men at all times. A door that had tugged at his natural curiosity from the moment he had first seen it, because he wanted to know where it led, and why it required such a high level of security. He was sure they were keeping something in there, something they didn’t want people knowing about.
“How did you escape?” Kyter pulled him back to the room, studying him closely, golden eyes searching for the answer to the question, a healthy dose of suspicion in them.
Talon closed his eyes as pain welled up from the depths of his heart. “Jayna… they had her in the cage, the room where they would torture and study us… and did something to her… gave her something. When I was thrown in there, she was maddened, and attacked me.”
He pressed his hand to his side as his wound ached in response, and fear tried to sink its claws into him again. He shook it off, and focused on talking, and not feeling. They were just words, just information.
“I tried to make her stop… but she wouldn’t listen.” He opened his eyes and locked them on the jaguar’s. “She sacrificed herself so I would have a chance to escape. I… I held her when she took her last breath and… the bastards panicked and rushed into the room to deal with her… and I killed them… I left her there.”
Sympathy flared in the male’s eyes.
Talon couldn’t take it.
A roar burned through him, his animal side unable to handle the pain, stricken with grief all over again, and he unleashed all that agony, let it all pour out of him and didn’t care if he scared anyone with it, or how weak it made him look.
He couldn’t hold it in.
His knees hit the floor and he arched his chest forwards and roared again, longer this time, until his throat burned. The pain refused to fade, wouldn’t release him from its grip, and fur rippled over his skin, the desire to shift and lose himself in his animal side taking hold.
Hands caught his cheeks and held him firm, her knees pressing into his thighs. “Talon.”
He sagged, his strength draining out of him, sucked from him by her comforting touch. Her sweet voice coaxed him back from the brink. Gods. He hung his head forwards, unable to bring himself to look at her.
“My brother is going to kill me when I get home,” he whispered to her knees.
She smoothed her hands over his shoulders. “Why would he do such a thing?”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, searched them so he didn’t miss anything. “She was meant to be his bride. I was tasked with meeting her in the fae town and bringing her home to him. Archangel took us both in a raid, and I did my best to uphold my vow to protect her for my brother… but…”
The beautiful look of surprise that flitted across her pretty face, touched with relief, stole his voice.
“Jayna wasn’t…” she said and he shook his head.
She hadn’t been a lover to him.
They had been close because of everything that Archangel had put them through, and because they had been the only two tigers at the compound, but nothing more than friends.
Even though Archangel had tried their best to make them something more than that.
“If you’re both done, and don’t need five minutes in the bedroom, can we get on with this?” Bleu growled and Sherry’s cheeks burned bright crimson.
Talon had a touch of heat on his too.
It was so easy to forget the rest of the world existed when he was close to her.
“I want to see Taryn,” Bleu muttered under his breath.
“You just want to get laid.” Kyter grinned wide when the elf turned a growl on him. “Deny it… go on.”
Bleu tossed him a black look but didn’t deny it.
“Sable will want to know what the tiger does. She’ll want in. You know what she’s like.” Bleu looked from Kyter to Iolanthe, and down to Sherry. They all sighed and nodded in agreement. “Damned little queen does love her action. Of course, you all know that means Thorne will come with her.”
“The more the merrier.” Talon wasn’t going to complain about having Sable’s mate in their ranks. He knew of Hell, and he knew of the demon kings that ruled seven realms there. A few mortal hunters would find it hard to take down a demon king in a rage. The male was an asset he was definitely happy to have on their side. “Sable will be able to get us in?”
“Us?” Sherry said, a note of disbelief in her voice. “No… you can’t go back there.”
“I have to.” He lowered his hands to her thighs and then eased them up to her hips, making the most of her sitting on his lap. “I need to go… I need to help the others.”
“How many are we looking for?” Kyter moved closer to the back of the couch, but didn’t tear Sherry out of his arms, which was progress.
Maybe he could convince the jaguar to loosen the reins and trust him with her after all.
“They took a few with me in the raid on the fae town… a witch, a couple of shifters, one of which I know was a wolf, and the other I think might be a bear but I’m not sure, and there was a demon merc too. They kept him pretty sedated.” He looked from Kyter to Sherry. “I have to get them out. I failed Jayna… I can’t fail them too.”
She looked as if she wanted to say no again.
“You’re sure this is wise?” Iolanthe joined her mate. “You take it hard whenever you are only speaking about what happened. What if going back there—”
“I know the risks,” he interjected and set his jaw, his teeth grinding together as anger flared, fire sweeping through him in response to her questioning his strength. “It won’t happen. I’ll keep my head once I’m there. It’s the waiting… the needing… I can’t take it. I have to make them pay.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Iolanthe looked to her mate as he said that.
Kyter shrugged, lifting the hem of his grey t-shirt. “It’s a male thing.”
Bleu nodded in agreement.
Iolanthe grumbled, “Stupid male things.”
Kyter grinned, flashing short fangs, and patted her shoulder. “You love it really.”
She rolled her violet eyes. “Yes, I do so enjoy it when you feel some ridiculous need to hurl yourself into trouble without thinking about the consequences, all because your jaguar nature needs to work off some aggression.”
He slung his arm around her, pulled her up to him and kissed her. “I don’t hear you complaining when I’m hurling myself into trouble to save this fine arse of yours.”
He palmed the backside in question.
Bleu growled, dismay combined with disgust crossing his face. “That’s my sister.”
“My mate,” Kyter shot back with an unrepentant smile. “I trump you, remember?”
“I think we’re getting off track again?” Sherry offered, an awkward edge to her expression as she turned back to face Talon. “Sorry… they’re always like this.”
He shrugged. “No problem.”
No problem at all as long as it kept her distracted so she didn’t notice the fact she was still sitting on his knees, her hands on his bare shoulders, all nice and close to him.
“Back in a second.” Greenish-purple light traced over Bleu’s body and he disappeared.
Talon shuddered at the memory of teleporting with Iolanthe, how cold and like death it had felt. Sherry smoothed her hands over his shoulders, regaining his attention, and smiled at him, a small sympathetic one that said she knew what he was thinking.
Bleu reappeared with a firecracker of a dark-haired female slapping at him, landing blows he didn’t try to block as he grinned at her, obviously enjoying himself for some reason. Either he was into rough play, or irritating the female was a source of amusement for him.
Her golden-brown eyes flashed fire at the elf. “You bloody know it winds him up when you do that!”
A mighty roar sounded, deafening in volume, and suddenly there was a monster of a male behind the elf. The huge russet-haired brute grabbed the elf’s shoulder in one meaty hand, snarled and hurled him backwards through the front door, sending it flying off its hinges.
“Oh, well that’s just great!” Sherry shot to her feet, capturing everyone’s attention.
Even the demon’s.
She jabbed a finger in his direction, fearless despite the sheer size of the male and his appearance. “You’re fixing that.”
The huge male blinked, red eyes rapidly gaining an edge of regret that Talon wanted to tell him wasn’t going to save him.
Sherry stormed towards the demon king, all spit and fire.
And gods, it made Talon hot for her.
She rose up on her toes and slapped the male, leaving a nice red imprint on his left cheek. The demon frowned, his dusky brown horns curling forwards around his ears as he brought his hand up and touched his face.
Aggression.
Talon was damned if he was going to sit there and let the male retaliate.
He was between Sherry and the brute in a flash, blocking the male’s path to her.
The demon king eyed him, curling his lip to flash a single fang as he looked him up and down, and then grunted and stomped towards the female who had appeared with Bleu, as if Talon wasn’t worth the bother.
Or maybe he had more pressing matters that needed his attention.
She didn’t fight when the demon dragged her into his thickly muscled arms like she was a ragdoll and smothered her with his bare chest, clumsily petting her long black hair.
“Mine,” the demon muttered.
The little female sighed, the most exasperated one Talon had ever heard.
Bleu picked himself up off the floor in the hallway outside the apartment, shook off the blow, and staggered back into the room holding his head. He was bleeding, a long gash down his left temple and cheek dripping crimson. In Talon’s opinion, the elf was lucky the demon hadn’t ripped him to shreds.
It wasn’t wise to take things from demons.
Especially their mates.
Bleu muttered something in a foreign lyrical tongue and pinned hard violet eyes on the demon’s back.
“You started it.” A muffled feminine voice came from somewhere in the tangle of the demon’s arms. She grunted and the male jerked backwards several times as she tried to free herself, but he refused to release her. “Oh, let me go, you big oaf! I’m not bloody going anywhere and you’ve made your point.”
He still didn’t let her go.
“Mine.”
“Great, now you’ve broken him…” she muttered and Talon thought he heard her sigh again. “Thank you so much, Bleu.”
Just the sound of his female saying the elf’s name was enough to have the demon growling, the dusky brown horns that sprouted from just above his pointed ears curling further, following the curve of his ears downwards, and their tips growing sharper as they twisted around like a ram’s. Huge dark leathery dragon-like wings burst from his bare back, knocking a few ornaments on the sideboard against the wall over. He looked over his wide shoulder at the elf, bared fangs on a snarl, and tucked her even closer to his chest.
“Squashing me now.” Her voice was strangled.
The demon instantly loosened his hold, caught her shoulders and pushed her back to arm’s length. His glowing red eyes ran over her, checking every inch of her, worry flashing in them.
She sighed and smoothed her palms along his jaw. “Not hurt. Not going anywhere. Stop being all growly.”
The demon snorted and muttered something in the demon tongue. She sighed again.
“I love you, dumbass.” She followed that up with a light slap to his cheek. “Hold on to that rage though… because I just came up with the most amazing plan ever.”
Who was this female?
She turned a high beam smile on the entire group.
“I know how to get the kitty’s friends back.”
Kitty? He had the sinking feeling she was referring to him. It was bad enough when people called him cat, or when Sherry had been calling him Tony. Kitty was a whole new level of condescension and one he wasn’t going to put up with.
“Talon. I’m not a cat… not a damned cartoon on a cereal box… and I’m definitely not a kitty. I’m a tiger… and unless you want to get up close and personal with my tiger form, I suggest you call me Talon.”
“Down, Tiger.” She winked at him. “See what I did there?”
He sighed.
“Sable.” She held her hand out, jerked it in the air as if shaking his, and planted it against her black-leather-clad hip. “Nice to meet you.”
Sable and Iolanthe obviously shopped at the same store. Both of them wore black leather trousers, but Sable had chosen a simple black t-shirt for her top half. An entire arsenal of weapons that included a long silver knife and a compact folding crossbow hung around her slender waist.
The demon brute had foregone a shirt entirely. He towered behind Sable, his chest a wall of bare muscle and his tight burgundy leathers looking fit to burst as they stretched over his tree trunk legs.
“Thorne,” he grunted, and curled one hand over Sable’s left shoulder, pressing dark claws into her pale skin. “Mine.”
“I got the memo.” Talon had the feeling that Thorne acted this way around any new male, and constantly around Bleu for some reason.
Thorne jerked his chin towards Sherry. “Yours.”
Sherry blushed a thousand shades of red.
“Well… no… um… no.” She didn’t sound so sure, which was a victory for Talon.
She wanted him, just as he wanted her.
Sable petted Thorne’s hand. “So here’s the plan—”
“I’m going into Archangel.” Talon cut her off and didn’t back down when she glared at him.
“Not a wise idea.”
“It is,” Sherry said and he couldn’t stop his eyes from leaping to her, or the shock that rippled through him. She smiled softly. “I don’t want you going back there, but you know the building, and you know where your friends are being held. If you’re right, and there’s a secret part of the building, Sable will need you there to show her the way.”
Sable cursed, a string of them that had her mate’s eyebrows rising.
She went through every obscenity imaginable, and then reluctantly sighed. “If that’s true, then the tiger comes with us… but it means a change to my plan.”
“What sort of change?” Bleu moved into the room, edging to his right, keeping his distance from the demon.
“I’m on the way out with Archangel. If we’re going to get the tiger in, we’ll need help. Emelia has good standing with the organisation, and she’s taking over my team, which makes her the perfect candidate to be the one who captures the tiger.”
“Wait… what?” Talon’s blood ran cold. “Capture me?”
Sable nodded. “How else do you plan to get back into Archangel without them locking it down? If you go barging in there, you’ll never get your friends out. Bleu can’t teleport you in, douse the lights, and get you and your friends back out. It would be too much of a drain on his powers and would set off alarms all over the building. Hell, even with Iolanthe helping, it would be too risky. We need to focus on the getting you all out part… which means you need to sneak in.”
By being caught. He didn’t like the sound of that.
He had no reason to trust Sable, or this Emelia character.
“Look… I get it… I’m with Archangel, and they’re enemy number one, but I’m mated to a demon, and I’m allied with a lot of different species now… and if Archangel are up to something, I want to know about it, and I want my friends at Archangel to be aware of it too. Emelia needs to see what’s going on.” Sable stepped out from her mate’s shadow, her golden eyes meeting Talon’s, sincere and determined. “Word on the grapevine is Archangel are still looking for you. It’s the perfect opportunity to get you back inside. Emelia catches you, and takes you in. You’ll lead her to your friends, and I’ll create a diversion with Thorne to keep everyone busy. When you’re in position, you’ll contact Bleu and Iolanthe—”
“And me,” Kyter interjected.
“And Kyter.” She didn’t miss a beat. “They’ll help you get your friends out.”
“I’m going too,” Sherry said, and Talon opened his mouth to tell her she damned well wasn’t, but her jaw tensed and her blue eyes narrowed on him. “I’m going.”
Sable’s eyes lit up. “I have the perfect job for you!”
He wanted to tell Sherry no, that he didn’t like the idea of her going into Archangel because it was dangerous and he needed to protect her. He held his tongue though, because he could read in her eyes and feel in the trickle of emotions that ran from her and into him, how much she needed to be there with him. He silently promised that he would be there if she needed him, he would keep her safe.
He wouldn’t fail her.
“You can borrow some of my Archangel gear,” Sable said and Sherry nodded. “We’ll get you in through the roof access and you can meet up with Emelia after she’s left Talon with the others.”
“What do you want me to do?” There was a wobble in Sherry’s voice that betrayed her nerves, and the need to tell her no kicked back to life inside him, stronger this time, so fierce it was a struggle to tamp it back down.
“I want you to get important information for me.” Sable’s expression shifted, growing warmer, yet determined, and Sherry’s courage rose in response, her nerves fading. The ex-Archangel huntress had clearly been a leader, and he admired her ability to inspire people and give them strength. “You’ll meet up with Emelia after she drops Talon off in the cells and she’ll take you to the central files division. You should be able to use one of the terminals there to find out why Talon and the others were taken. I’ll give you a USB drive so you can download anything you find that might be useful.”
Sherry nodded.
Talon didn’t like the sound of that.
“Just download whatever you find and get out of there. We can look at it when we’ve met up and we’re safe.” His desire to have her get in and out as quickly as possible was partly because he wanted her safe.
And partly because he wasn’t sure whether Archangel had discovered his secret.
He didn’t want Emelia, or any of the others learning about it.
And he didn’t want Sherry finding out about it before he had a chance to tell her himself.
“I’ll meet up with you,” he said.
Sherry shook her head, a flicker of fear entering her blue eyes again. “No. I want you out of there as soon as possible.”
That touched him, even as it riled him. She wasn’t questioning his ability as a warrior, and she wasn’t saying she didn’t need him to protect her, but it felt that way.
“I’m finding you and bringing you out of there with me. I’m not going to let Archangel do anything to you, Sherry. I’m not going to leave you unprotected.” He stepped closer to her, so she had to tip her head back to keep her eyes on his, and refused to back down even when the softer side of himself, the part that was in tune with her, warned he was upsetting her.
And exposing himself to the others.
Their eyes pierced him, their unspoken questions ringing in his ears. What was Sherry to him?
He didn’t want them knowing the answer to that question, even when part of him knew they already did, and that his little outburst had only confirmed it all for them.
“Talon,” Sherry whispered and placed her hand on his chest, right over the tiger inked on his left pectoral.
That touch unravelled him.
All of his anger washed out of him as if she had lifted a barrier, his need to fight her in order to keep her safe running from him with it, and he could only stare down into her blue eyes, catching the resolve that flashed in them, among the other emotions.
Ones that stole his breath.
Ones that told him things she couldn’t say.
She liked his desire to protect her.
She understood it.
Because she felt the same way.
Kindred spirits.
They both wanted to know the other one was safe, wanted to protect and shield them, and stop anything from happening to them.
Gods, there had never been a female who had wanted to fight in his corner, who wanted to protect him.
Females had always looked at him as a protector, a warrior, one who would keep them safe.
Now a female was looking at him as an equal, as something important enough to her that she wanted to be the protector, the warrior, the one who would keep him safe.
It warmed his heart.
Had he really only known this fierce, beautiful female for a few short hours?
It felt as if he had known her his entire life, that he had always been aware of her.
Waiting for her.
Needing her above anything else.
She was the other half of his soul, everything he had been missing, and now she was within his reach.
He only had to overcome one hurdle and she would be his forever.
One that felt impossible to leap.
One that might take her away from him forever.