“Do it’ he taunted. “It would benefit both of us. It’s so cliched, you know. This vixenish, sex-starved, femme fatale role you play. You need a makeover, Sara. Perhaps if I’m gone, you’ll get one.”
For a moment, Reed thought she might shred him to pieces. She could, if she desired. She was far more powerful than he was in every way. Then the moment passed. Her expressive face showed the transformation from furious indignation to sly consideration. She held her hand out to him for assistance. Catching her wrist, he pulled her to standing.
“Why such concern for Raguel?” she asked, righting her clothing.
Reed shook his head. What he wanted from Raguel was for him alone to know.
“I underestimated you.” Her tone was thoughtful. She thrust her fingers into her shoulder-length tresses and shook them out. “Trust me on this point: Evangeline cannot be pulled to you. She must be pushed. Rescuing Raguel will not be enough to win her from Cain.”
“Why are you so fixated on Eve? Get over it.”
“I want you to get over her,” Sara said without inflection. “And the surest way to do that is to let you have your fill.”
He watched the way her gaze darted around the room. Cain’s room. The seat of his new power. Understanding dawned. “Ah, I see. Clever girl. This doesn’t have anything to do with me. Or sex. This is about my brother.”
For once he wasn’t needled by Cain’s prominence. He was, instead, relieved Eve was not the focus.
Her chin lifted. “Must everything in your life be about him?”
“Don’t put this on me,” he admonished, amused by her chagrin. “You have to compete with a new archangel, one who retains Jehovah’s favor no matter how f**ked up he is. Giving Eve to me means getting her away from Cain. That might make him crazy enough to do something stupid. Maybe prompt a response that might prove him unworthy of the ascension”
“You are obsessed with—”
“I like the way you think, Sara’ he interjected. “Don’t ruin my moment of admiration with your bitching.”
Her mouth snapped shut.
Reed moved to the desk and leaned against it. “I’m surprised you approached me with the Eve angle, though. Why not dangle Cain as the bait? Did you really believe she would be more of a draw than my brother?”
“I have never seen you so focused on a woman. I saw the tape. Of you and her in the stairwell. When you marked her.”
A surge of fury moved through him. That was for him and Eve alone. The thought of someone else observing—especially Sara—made his gut and fists clench.
He uncurled his fingers one by one.
“Ah, but she’s not just any woman, is she?” he murmured. As Sara’s mouth curved in a smile, he knew he had her. “We want the same thing, and we’re agreed on how best to get it.”
Eyeing him warily, she returned to her seat. “So…?”
“I don’t think Izzie’s enough to lure him away, or to drive Eve to me.”
“Iselda had him once.”
“When he thought he couldn’t have Eve. That’s not the case “You spoke of favors owed. What favor would he have cashed in to be promoted?”
Reed stilled. “Maybe. . .“ he murmured, “it’s a favor he promised.”
After a moment of silence, she began to applaud, each measured clap like a gunshot in the room. “Brilliant.”
“Find out to whom,” he ordered, “and—if you can— what the ante is.”
“Well,” she drawled, “that will only take me a few decades. I am not even certain how many seraphim and cherubim there are.”
He knew she would find a way. She wouldn’t be the last female archangel heading a firm, if she wasn’t both ruthless and resourceful.
As for Raguel, Reed would have to seek alternate routes to reach him, and he would have to move cautiously and alone. No archangel would initiate an offensive maneuver against Sammael, which ensured that no mal’akh or Mark would help him either.
To whom did one turn when he wished to go where angels feared to tread?
He turned away from Sara.
To a demon, of course.
Another horde of tengu.
Alec looked at Eve and groaned inwardly. She attracted disasters. And it had nothing to do with her smelling like a Mark.
“Come here,” he beckoned, his voice resonant with an archangel’s command but lacking coercion. He wanted her to come freely.
She looked at him with wary eyes, sensing the turmoil within him. He wondered if she heard the stirrings in his head,the needs that hissed like serpents, prodding his temper and making him both irritable and mischievous.
If she only knew what that prim pink shirt of hers did to him. The snug fit made it hard for him to concentrate on the task at hand. He wanted her; the darkness in him pushed him to take her, while another part of him was far more fascinated by the little freckle on her nape and the small section of silky hair that was always falling out of her ponytail. The two halves were fighting all the time, exhausting him and leaving him confused.
Did all archangels suffer a similar duality? Or was he—Cain of Infamy—uniquely evil in a way he’d denied for centuries?
As an archangel, he had been stripped of the ability to love anyone but God, but his need for Eve was more urgent than ever. Malevolent voices had joined him with the ascension. They whispered deep within his breast, fueled by the connection he had to all the Infernals within the firm. As long as Eve was near, his control was tenuous. She was a beacon in the gloom and he craved her in a ferocious way, but he couldn’t relinquish her, even for her own benefit. She was a direct line into Abel’s head and all the knowledge his brother had gained in the centuries he’d been a handler. As a fledgling archangel, Alec needed that information to run the firm.
He couldn’t keep his promise to help free her from the mark. Not yet.
Maybe never.
“I can never read what you’re thinking,” she said, “when youhave that particular expression.”
“I can show you what I’m thinking. . .“ He was unable to curb the edge to his words.
“You and your brother are more alike than you realize.”
“Perhaps we’re more alike than you realize,” he warned. His smile felt cruel. He wouldn’t be able to resist having her much longer, and when it happened, he doubted he could be as gentle with her as he’d once been.
A shadow passed over her features and through her mind. A sense of loss and melancholy.
Regret settled heavily over him, his humanity waxing and the recklessness waning in response to her withdrawal.
“Come here,” he repeated, gentler this time, his hand extended to her.
With her chin lifted, Eve descended the few steps between them. Frustrated by that hint of reluctance, Alec caught her around the waist and pulled her flush against him. He shifted so quickly that she was still midgasp when they alighted on a nearby rooftop.
She smacked him on the shoulder. “You could have warned me!”
He nipped the end of her nose with a tiny love bite. “I could have. But this was more fun.”
“For who?”
“For both of us. I know you, daredevil. You’re the type of girl who’d take off with a stranger on a Harley just for the ride.”
Her nose wrinided. “Where’s a stranger on a Harley when I need one?”
“What? And miss this party?” He gestured to the roof of Gadara’s unfinished building.
A couple of dozen tengu danced excitedly around the massive ventilation and air-conditioning units dotting the shiny metal top. Each little gray stone beast was the size of a gallon of milk. They sported tiny wings and broad grins. Eve had once called them cute, although they were far from cuddly.
“Right,” she said, hands going to her hips. “Figures it would have to be the roof again.”
“Tengu were the original inspiration for gargoyles. What better place to hide than in plain sight?”
“I don’t care about that. I care about my fear of heights not meshing well with running around on rooftops.”
Alec looked at her. He knew she had a phobia about heights, but it didn’t affect her decisiveness. Her features were set in her gearing-up-to-brawl look: pursed lips, narrowed eyes, and a stubborn jawline. He didn’t like her being in the line of fire, but he sure liked her game face.
“Look at the little bastards,” she muttered, sending his gaze back to the tengu. “They’re trying to brain us.”
Sure enough, the tengu had formed a ladder of sorts by standing on each other’s shoulders. Other tengu climbed up the backs of their brethren to reach the top of the stairwell enclosure. They waited there for a chance to jump on whoever stepped onto the roof, their hands clasped over their mouths to stem their incessant giggling.
“Why do you think we’re over here?” he said. “I wanted you to see what we’re up against before you barreled headfirst out the door and into danger.”
“I wouldn’t have done that!”
“Would have been the first time you held back.” Eve faced him. “As a warm-up to kicking their asses, I’m about to kick yours. Why are you pushing me?”
“Because that’s what mentors are supposed to do, angel.”
She exhaled harshly. “Did you notice that it didn’t stink when the door was open? And look, they don’t have any details.”
“I noticed.
“The mask is supposed to wear off. Maybe we didn’t wipe out everyone who knew about the formula.”
“Yep. Could be trouble.”
“Or could be they were made with the masking stuff mixed into the cement.”
Alec smiled.
She shot him a wry glance. “You already thought of that.”
“Yes, but only a second before you did.”
“We could also have a leak somewhere in the firm.”
“It’s possible,” he conceded, “but that would be my last guess.”
While most firms had Infernals working within their ranks, they were rarely trusted with sensitive information. Demons never fully acclimated to the celestial life and the rules that came with it. Many considered their “conversion” temporary. They secretly hoped to get their hands on valuable information or an object that would prompt Sammael to take them back into the fold. However, both Raguel and Alec trusted Hank—an occultist who specialized in the magical arts—to oversee the investigation into the mask. Hank had been with the North American firm for so long that he was a fixture. He was still inherently evil, but he was content to be evil for the good guys.
“So how do we want to do this?” Eve asked, tightening her ponytail. “I suppose we should keep one of them to see what they’re made of.”
“If you can manage it this time.” The last time they fought tengu on Gadara’s roof, she’d vanquished both of them.
Shoving him playfully in the shoulder, Eve said, “Bring it on. Let’s see which one of us can catch one.”
“What’s the ante?”
“Hmm. .
“Sex.”
“With me? That’s worth more than a tengu.” Alec laughed. “Agreed. But I’m hard up, 1 had to try.”
“We’ll just keep it on retainer.”
“Works for me. Gives me time to come up with something really good.”
“Ha! Assuming you’ll win, which you won’t.” He held out his hand to shake on it. “Bring it on.” Eve accepted the handshake with a mischievous gleam in her dark eyes. “I’ll take the lower left corner.”
“Upper right. Meet in the middle?”
She nodded.
He snatched her close and kissed her. A hot, wet, deep kiss that took advantage of her gasp to sneak inside and lick. At the same time, he shifted them to the tengu-infested roof, so it was over the moment it started. But it was great while it lasted. He dropped her off, then shifted to the corner on the diagonal.
“Pretty Mark!” an observant tengu cried, followed by excited squeals from the rest of the mob. The few on the stairwell jumped down, one breaking off a leg in the process. It collected its detached appendage and continued on with a one-legged hop.
“Hey,” Alec roared as they all surged toward Eve.
“Cain!” several yelled gleefully, separating from the mass and changing direction toward him.
Eve was already in motion, darting to the side and catching a tengu by the arm. Swinging in a wide arc, she gained velocity. She hurtled the demon into its brethren like a bowling ball into pins. Some crashed into those behind them, some leaped over the tumbling wave. She knocked one back with a roundhouse kick and feinted away from another one. Her grim determination and unwavering focus arrested Alec. When Marks were on a hunt, they were bolstered by the effects of the mark—adrenaline, aggression, increased muscle mass. Fear was held at bay by those things. But Eve wasn’t on a hunt, she was on her own. She managed it beautifully.
Two tengu launched a third one at Alec like a missile. He ducked. Like Eve, he used rapid kicks to keep his immediate perimeter clear, but maintenance wasn’t the goal. Eradication was. A loud crash and high-pitched shouts of dismay on the other side of the roof told him Eve had just smashed one. Tengu were all for having a little evil fun, but not if it meant getting hurt.
Catching a tengu in each hand, he bashed them together. Debris exploded outward and turned to ash before hitting the ground. “Two down. Ten more to go.”
“Cain can’t save pretty Mark,” a tengu sang, flapping its stone wings. “Sammael gets what Sammael wants.”
“Sammael is going to get me,” he barked back, “if he doesn’t keep his minions to himself.”
Laughing, the tengu regrouped and rushed him. He waited until the last minute, then shifted away. The converging tengu collided. Two overzealous ones hit each other with enough force to wipe each other out. A cloud of ash plumed upward and dissipated in the gentle breeze.