Chapter Forty
She was ill-equipped to take on this particular Apex – because he wasn’t supposed to exist. Not anymore. And her mind couldn’t wrap itself around that.
I have to get out, she thought desperately. She remembered the transport spell, and as he closed the distance between them, she opened her mouth to finish it as quickly as possible.
“Ah, but Angel,” he interrupted her, “if you leave now, he will surely die. You can still save him, you know.” Dmitri nodded to something over her shoulder, and Angel stiffened. As if she had no choice in the matter, she turned her head to look.
Two of the men hanging from the ceiling had stopped bleeding. But blood continued to drip from the third. Knight was not yet dead.
Angel reacted before thinking. She spun in place and bolted for the man, wanting nothing more in that moment than to keep him alive. She made it half-way before Dmitri was standing once more before her, and she was slamming head-long into his chest.
He’d slipped into vampire mode, red-eyed and fanged, and powerful vampire magic flowed from his form so thick it was suffocating. Angel gasped for breath as Dmitri’s hand instantly wrapped around one of her wrists to hold her fast. In that insane and desperate moment, Angel realized that even while blood covered her and everything in her apartment, not a single drop of it had landed anywhere on Dmitri’s tall, beautiful body.
Dizziness swept over her. He was flooding her with his will, sapping her strength just to show her he could. Somehow, she formed words. “Let me go, damn it!” Time was ticking. Knight was dying.
Dmitri ignored her, slipping a strong hand at her lower back to pull her hard against his body. His eyes burned red like dragon’s fire. He bared his fangs behind a terrible, beautiful smile. “Nice necklace,” he said softly. “Did Crow give that to you?”
Angel froze in his arms and gazed helplessly up at him.
He grinned, his powerful eyes glinting. He didn’t really care about the necklace, and she knew it. He wasn’t threatened by Jake. Nothing made Dmitri feel threatened. He just wanted her to know that he’d noticed it.
As if to prove how unthreatened he was, he pulled back on his power, allowing her head to clear, and smiled down at her like a demon Cheshire cat.
“You… spineless, soul-eating, empty void of malicious evil, son of a bitch,” she hissed. “You can’t stop killing people, can you?” Her voice shook, but her fury, her pent-up anger, her absolute rage at all that had happened to her was boiling over, and there was no putting a lid on it now.
Dmitri’s laugh was infuriating. But there was an edge to it that hadn’t been there before. “If you want me to stop so badly, then stop me, Angel. Give yourself to me now, heart and soul, and I will never kill anyone again.”
Angel felt his words like a slap to the face. Her eyes widened. Disbelief rang out at the end of every nerve. She was positive she hadn’t heard him right.
“You heard me right, Angel love. Give in to me now, and I will never take another human life.”
Angel wanted to believe it was some kind of trick. But Dmitri’s grip on her tightened, his chest un-giving against her. “No tricks, little one. Think about it. Give me what I want and I will return the favor.”
She heard him, but she still couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t understand. He wasn’t going to kill anymore?
“It’s simple.” He suddenly released her and stepped back, just like that. She steadied herself without his help this time, her mind spinning.
Dmitri studied her as he spoke. “For the better part of twenty years, I’ve watched you, yearned for you, craved you.” He laughed in self-admonishment, shaking his head, and turned to pace a few steps. “I planned, manipulated, and killed for you. You fought me every step of the way.” He stopped, landed her with his red eyes. “You still do. And it’s clear you’ll never stop.”
He waited where he was at a distance, and measured his words carefully. “It should have become clear to me when you pumped me full of your clever poison, but I was too consumed by fire to realize then.” He cocked his head to the side, his smile wry. “Fortunately I had a contingency plan for just such an occasion; an alpha werewolf waiting in the wings. So I’ve had fifteen long years to think it over.”
He came toward her. “It’s who you are. You’re a fighter by nature. And now I even realize it’s part of what makes me love you.”
“You aren’t capable of love,” she spat.
“Maybe not.” He shrugged, his smile broadening. “I am as the Storyteller made me. But I don’t know what else to call this.” The red in his eyes blazed. He was a vessel of hunger, and now the magic was pouring out around him again. He’d either decided to no longer spare her, or he was no longer capable of holding it back.
It moved before him like a shadow as he overtook her. Once more, she was encased in his power, and this time it was Apex power. Not just any Apex, an ancient vampire turned by an alpha werewolf. It was strong beyond measure, and it barely allowed her to breathe, much less move.
She shook in his wake as he towered before her, so close that when she breathed in, her chest touched his. “I’ve reached the end, Angel. I’ve killed, died, changed, killed, watched other men put their hands on you….” He gritted his fanged teeth and swallowed hard as if he could barely stomach the thought.
“I’ve killed just to ease the fury that followed.” He paused and reached up as if to touch the backs of his fingers to her cheek, but she flinched, turning her face away.
He stopped, the fire in his eyes flaring.
Angel was certain he would lose it then. She readied herself for the worst. He was going to grab her, sink his teeth into her, drain her to near death, torture her, or maybe just finally kill her once and for all. She was positive he would be unable to contain the powerful emotion moving through him. When faced with this kind of opposition, in this much frustration, Apex tended to give in to their instincts and go nuts. They were composed of all the strongest aspects of two terrifying beasts. And when pushed to their limits, they flew off the handle at even the slightest provocation. It was yet another thing that made them so dangerous.
But Dmitri stayed his hand with enormous control and instead firmly but gently took her chin in his fingers, forcing her to face him. He fixed his eyes to hers. His voice lowered, becoming intimate. When he spoke, his words moved around her like silk, but burned her like dry ice. “I’ve pinned you to the wall every way I know how, Angel. You always break free. You always slip my grasp. And I can’t go on like this. Nothing in the realms can end this pain but you. So I’m willing to make you a deal.”
She stared up at him, and his words returned to her. Give in to me now and I will never take another human life. “You’re lying,” she breathed shakily. It was a trick. It had to be.
“Have I ever lied to you?”
Angel tried to step back, but his magic wouldn’t let her. It was roped around her limbs as sure as bent rebar. He was giving her space, but not that much. There was only so far he was willing to go.
“Answer me, Angel. Have I ever lied to you?”
No, she thought. You haven’t.
He hadn’t. Not once. Every single time he had done something horrible to her, he’d freely, if not proudly admitted it. No lying. Just evil. “No.”
“So now you have a choice.” He spoke through his teeth again, clearly struggling with something inside him that told him to end this here and now and turn her, whether her heart was in it or not. But he wanted more from her than her body, and always had. He wanted her to come to him willingly, to accept him.
He wanted her to choose him. Over everyone else. Over Michael. Over Gabriel.
Over Jacob Crow.
Jake… her inner voice automatically spoke his name, and her lips automatically remembered the hungry, searching feel of his. Her body tingled from head to toe as a beautiful bird, inked into a broad sculpted back, flashed before her eyes. She blinked, trying to focus.
The fire erupted in Dmitri’s pupils, his power licking at her skin painfully. She hissed an intake of breath against the pain. That focused her plenty.
“Decide.”
The word was spoken like a curse, the ultimate ultimatum. And he went on. “Let me in, Angel. Give yourself to me right now… and save your clan, save your annoyingly hands-on mentor….” He lowered his head, his gaze claiming the darkness of his face. “Save your friends.” He released her chin.
Or let them all die. It was unspoken, but there was no need to give it voice. She comprehended the threat perfectly.
“You can’t survive without killing.” She said it even as she knew it wasn’t true. As a vampire, it might have been true but for the fact that some vampires could escape that necessity with strong enough magic. But that wasn’t even an issue for him any longer. He was Apex, and half werewolf. Even without the help of magic, he no longer needed to periodically drain a creature to completion to continue his existence. The werewolf half of him negated that. It was ironic in fact, that two of the world’s most vicious and instinctive killers canceled each other out when combined to become a literal Apex predator. The ultimate killing machine – no longer needed to kill. It just usually wanted to.
“Come now, you know that isn’t true,” he whispered, smiling a different kind of smile, as if he were calling her out and it was a private joke. He reached slowly to brush her cheek again, and this time when she tried to turn away, she simply couldn’t.
She felt a wave of danger wash over her. “You have twenty-four hours, Angel. I will come for your answer tomorrow night. And for you. Either way.” His eyes scorched a path over her face, stark and starving. “What happens in the meantime is on your hands.”
With that, he spun in a blur of darkness and magic, and was gone.
Chapter Forty-One
Gabriel left the Demon King’s safe house at a fast stride, exiting through a seemingly normal set of double doors that actually deposited him directly into an alley-way “Harry Potter” style. He moved down the alley until he was clear of the king’s wards, then prepared to transport.
He needed to see Angel immediately to fill her in on Dmitri Voronin. Unfortunately, this job had taken longer than he’d have liked. Gabe wouldn’t have taken it had he known Angel would return to Vega territory tonight. As it was, she had been home a good ten minutes already by his estimates. By now she was no doubt pissed off about the extra “security” he’d sent to her apartment.
The moment he’d hung up after speaking with Angel and Crow, Gabriel had called in reinforcements. He’d known it would take him some time to finish dealing with the mess he and his team were in the middle of, so he issued fast orders while dodging spells and demon attacks, then went back to work.
Knight, Hudson, and Daniels were sent immediately to her apartment to meet her there, as was originally planned. Angel was going to motherfucking learn that she couldn’t escape Gabriel’s orders that easily.
Oh, I’m sure she’s learned, Gabe, his guilty mind told him as he called up the transport. You’re probably going to catch a shit ton of heat from her for this.
It doesn’t matter, he told himself firmly. She would just have to deal. He’d done what he’d felt he had to do to keep her safe.
The transport spell swirled around him, melted the dingy colors of the alley, and took him through time and space. But as he neared his destination, Angel’s apartment, he became troubled. The walls of the transport tunnel took on a reddish hue. It was never a good sign when they did that.
Gabriel pulled the gun from his holster, readied it, and waited for the spell to open and let him out. The moment the exit was large enough for him to step through, his concern changed to alarm. He smelled blood. There was a lot of it.
His only consolation was that he didn’t smell her blood.
Gabriel ran from the tunnel as it deposited him, leaping into the apartment that waited beyond its exit. His boots gained an immediate footing in literal inches of spilled blood. His mind cursed as he turned, surveying the damage. Instantly his eyes fell on the figures at the center of the living room.
“Gabe!” Angel called out through clenched teeth. She was struggling with one of three hanging bodies that dangled in grisly fashion from the ceiling. “Please… help me!”
Gabriel shoved his gun into its holster and strode to the center of the room, taking the weight of the Vega assassin’s body off Angel’s hands. He concentrated on the chain around the man’s chest. It had been fastened differently than the other two, and knowing what Gabe knew of the killer’s MO at this point, he was pretty sure he knew why.
Ares Knight wasn’t like the other two assassins. Prior to becoming members of the Vega clan, Hudson and Daniels had already been trained assassins. They’d killed dozens of people, if not hundreds.
But Ares had been, of all things, a kindergarten teacher. Knight wasn’t a bad man. He was a man with serious talent who’d been seriously wronged. He’d lost his family to the supernatural. It sent him to Gabriel’s door and gave him a reason to want to kill. And now if he survived, it looked like he’d have another reason.
The chain around Ares was meant to be undone so the man could be safely lowered, and from what Gabriel could see and smell, his injuries were the kind that would slowly cause him to hemorrhage to the point of death, but there’d been no direct damage to internal organs.
In comparison, the other two had been strung so tight, their chains cut deep into their chest cavities.
The killer knew about the pasts of these men, and as he’d done with all of his prior victims, he’d acted accordingly.
Gabriel tried not to think about the loss he was facing. He shoved it into the recesses of his mind like he’d been trained to do long ago and focused on the task at hand. After a few tense seconds that seemed far longer than they really were, Gabe managed to get the chain loose and lower Knight gently to the ground.
He knew the immediate danger in the apartment had passed, or he never would have reholstered his gun. There was no one else there with them – but there had been. Gabe recognized the killer’s signature in everything around them. He also recognized the fleeting remnants of his vast power, and caught fading traces of his singular scent.
Dmitri Voronin had been here. This bloodshed was his handiwork.
Angel wasted no time kneeling beside Ares, and Gabe gave her space. She placed her hands upon the barely moving chest cavity of the Vega assassin and closed her eyes. He watched as her hands began to glow, and within seconds that precious glow widened, spreading out to encompass the whole of Knight’s tortured body.
Gabriel waited. He waited and he tried not to think.
He tried desperately not to think about the fact that the moment he’d come close enough to Angel, he could smell someone else on her. In fact, he could smell the bastard all over her. In the most intimate of ways.
Gabe’s eyes felt too hot. His fingertips twinged. His gums felt swollen. Down on the blood-splattered floor in front of him, Angel Clemens released rare magic into one of his team members, healing his wounds from the inside out. Gabriel forced himself to focus on that, on the life being saved, on the death all around him, and on the danger that could at any moment return. And as he did, he regained control over his body.
When Ares began to stir beneath Angel’s touch, Gabe took a knee beside them. With one arm under the man’s head to lift him to a sitting position, he helped the assassin regain his faculties.
“What happened?” Gabriel asked him.
Ares was discombobulated. He’d been near death, and strong magic was moving through him right now, not unlike an extreme narcotic. Ares was high. Gabe knew he would feel weak, light-headed, euphoric. He knew he would need a few moments.
But time pressed in on them; the night was young. And Gabriel’s patience was officially all burned out. He snapped his head around and pinned Angel with an uncompromising look. “Okay, you tell me what happened,” he demanded. It was almost a growl.
But when Angel flinched at the tone of his voice, and he really took the time to look at her, he realized she wasn’t having the easiest time of it either.
Of course she’s not, you idiot. She faced off with Dmitri!
She was pale, she was scared, and she’d used a lot of magic to heal Knight’s wounds. She was also kneeling in a puddle of blood – in her own living room. She had probably walked in on this nightmare.
Despite his lingering anger at her for disobeying his orders and fleeing to Monsters territory, this wasn’t the welcoming party he’d wanted for her on her return. This right here was a little slice of Hell.
He took a deep breath and made sure Ares could sit on his own. Then he sat back on his heels. “Please Angel,” he said, this time more gently. “Tell me what happened.”
Angel nodded, but refused to meet his gaze. It troubled him, but he didn’t push her. She stared at the ground, and he followed her gaze to see that she was unable to pull it away from a particularly nasty puddle of blood. That one was beneath Daniels.
Gabe felt a pang of something inside and realized it was a mix of two emotions. One was a primal need to protect. The other was cold, hard fury. He needed to protect Angel. He was furious that someone had dared touch any of his clan members, much less kill them. And most of all, he was raging mad that it had happened right in front of her.
“I knew something was wrong when I pulled into the parking garage,” she said. “It just felt off. But I didn’t put it together until I opened my apartment door. I… I could smell metal right away.” Her voice was distant. It sounded the way it had when he’d come upon her after Dmitri’s attack fifteen years ago.
Damn it, no.
“Dmitri was waiting for me,” she continued. “He had attacked all three of them and….” She swallowed. He watched her throat move, struggling with what must have been a closing passage. “He hung them up.”
Gabriel had figured that much out already. What he wanted to know was why the asshole was gone, and Angel was still here. If he’d been Dmitri, he wouldn’t have left until she was turned – and then he would have taken her with him. In chains.
“We fought.” She shrugged, a defeated gesture he’d never seen her use before. “Sort of.” She closed her eyes and her head dropped a little. It was clear she felt ashamed. She hadn’t bagged the supe. She’d lost, and in doing so, she felt she’d failed in her warden duties.
“He was just… too fast.” She paused then, and looked up at him. “I think he knew you were coming though. He told me he would be back and he just left. And then you walked in.”
Gabriel studied her in silence. She seemed so sincere. And yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t telling him everything. There was more to this story than she was letting on. All he knew for certain was that Dmitri had killed two of his men and that Angel wasn’t lying about Dmitri promising to be back.
So that was what he focused on.
“You can’t stay here,” he told her with finality. “And for once in your damn stubborn life, you’re going to do what I tell you, and go where I tell you to go.”
He took her firmly by the wrist as he stood, dragging her up with him. He ignored her shocked expression as she stumbled to her feet beside him, but when she yanked her arm free of his grasp, Gabriel felt his entire body tense as if preparing for a fight.
She surprised him, though. Rather than pull away, she stepped closer to him, leveling a gaze on him that made him feel her eyes were throwing sparks and he was standing in a powder keg. That fiery, furious gaze narrowed dangerously as she pointed her finger and leaned in to let him have it.
“You are the reason these men are dead, Gabriel,” she hissed with poisonous malice. “I came back here tonight out of some sick sense of duty, to apologize to you for disobeying orders and to tell you that I’d been granted the Apex case! Why? Because I fucking care! Because I’m your second-in-command and I felt it was my goddamn job!”
She shook her head, baring her straight, white teeth. “If I hadn’t felt so fucking obligated to do so, I never would have even called you, much less driven back here. And then you wouldn’t have overreacted and sent three fucking assassins into my apartment to await my return!”
He could feel her magic pouring out of her. It was something he’d never experienced before. It was like watching a star fall apart, its outer layers shedding magnanimous light that illuminated everything around it as it drifted away. It was yellow-gold, and to him it tasted like honey. Wasted honey. She was losing control of it, right here and now for the first time in her life, letting it slip past her defenses in her absolute horror and misery.
And she was right. He was to blame.
What the hell was he doing being mad at her?
Gabriel very slowly held up his hands in a sign of defeat and took a step back, giving her space. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry, Angel.” He shook his head, just once from side to side. “Please forgive me.”