Мишель Роуэн - Angel with Attitude

Uneasiness settled over her. “Yeah, well, I promise to make it up to you.”

He smiled thinly. “Yes, I just bet you would.”

“Remember that thing I just said about no time? I kind of meant it. Now come on. Don’t be difficult.” She tried to grab his wrist but he twisted away from her

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Val glanced nervously over her shoulder. There was only a matter of minutes, if that, before somebody would be along the hallway. “Excuse me?”

“It’s over.” He smiled and cocked his head to the side. “But it was fun while it lasted. For, oh, ten minutes or so.”

She frowned. “What—?”

His gaze moved to the rat. “Reggie, you would have been so proud of me. All it took was a few flowery words and—well, let’s just say she’s certainly no angel underneath it all.”

Val’s mouth opened but she couldn’t find the words to speak.

“Don’t talk about her that way,” Reggie said, low and edgy.

“What way? I’m only speaking the truth. So typical. Honestly, they’re all the same. Women.

When a man tells her what they want to hear, they’ll give it up. Anything. Cease being themselves and become a plaything.” He shrugged. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

Val’s jaw was clenched so tightly that it hurt. “What did they do to you at head office?”

“I can’t wait to tell Yasmeen all about it. Now, there’s a woman who knows exactly what I want. A little risk, a little unpredictability, and might I add . . . amazing in bed. Not all timid and inexperienced like you were, angel. Amusing, but in the end, a waste of my precious time.”

“I said,” Reggie spoke louder, “don’t talk about her that way. You don’t deserve to be breathing the same air as her, you pathetic demon piece of shit.”

Nathaniel cocked his head to the other side, looked at the rat for a moment, then in one motion flicked him off Val’s shoulder. Reggie fell to the floor with a painful sounding “ooof.”

She turned her stunned gaze to the demon. “I don’t care what they tried to do to you down there. You need to fight it. They’ve messed with your mind. Lloyd told me about it. It’s . . . mind manipulation. Like brainwashing. This isn’t really you.”

“But it is me, angel. I thought you always wanted the truth? Or was it only the truth you wanted to hear? Too bad. You let me tempt you. And it was so easy. Admit it.” He grinned.

“Don’t try to tell me you didn’t enjoy it. I know you did.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me. I don’t love you. Never did. It was all a ruse to get you to say yes to me. Got it?

Do my words sting, angel? The truth hurts.”

Val stared at him. Then she gathered Reggie, now limping and staring daggers at Nathaniel, in her arms and stood tall to face her Tempter. She tried to summon something within herself, channel her hurt feelings into rage, bring fire into her own eyes to stare him and his razor-

sharp words down. To hurt him back.

But she couldn’t.

A tear slipped down her cheek. “I don’t believe you.”

He frowned at her. And his expression softened for a split second before tensing again. He straightened his back and raised a dark eyebrow.

“Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed. “Now I believe I gave you something earlier to hold on to for safekeeping? The key? Forgive me, but I’ll need to take it back before I go ahead and take you to Hell.”

She stiffened. “Forget it.”

“The head office wants it. I’m now compelled to obey them, and only them. Got it?”

“Oh, I got it all right.”

“Now.” He stepped closer. “The key?”

“No.”

His expression darkened. “Give the key to me.”

“Nope.”

“Give it to me.”

“No.”

He sighed, and grabbed her upper arm tightly. “I’m sick of playing these games. I won’t ask you again. Give it to me now.”

“Okay.”

Val kneed him hard in the groin as Lisa did earlier. As she’d done to Julian. Practice made perfect. He immediately released her. Then she lashed out with her fingernails, the best weapon she had available—other then her lethal knee—to slash at his perfect face. Then, one hand pressing Reggie protectively against her chest, she started to run.

“Valerie!” Nathaniel called after her, and his voice sounded angry and pained. “Come back here!”

She didn’t turn. She didn’t answer. She simply ran. She turned the next corner and skidded to a halt when she saw Lisa in front of her.

“Val!” the girl yelled and waved her arms wildly.

“Come on.” Val ran over and grabbed her wrist to drag her along toward the front doors. She didn’t have the time to ask her how she’d managed to get away from Julian. They’d both escape. Together. But as she grasped the huge handle to the front door of the mansion, she felt

Nathaniel clamp his hand down on her shoulder and turn her forcefully back around.

A line of blood showed above and below his left eye from where she’d scored him with her fingernails. Between, his eyes were fiery. Fierce. Angry. His grip was so tight she knew she wouldn’t be able to get away from him now. He could easily take her and Lisa back out to

Julian. He could take the key.

How had the head office managed to change him so greatly?

She met his fiery gaze and held it as they stood at the doorway.

“Nathaniel,” she said, and noticed her voice was so choked up that it hurt to talk. “I need to tell you something.”

“Is that right? Well, spit it out, angel.”

She blinked. “I still love you.”

The flames strengthened in his eyes for an excruciatingly long moment until it hurt just to look at him, and then extinguished completely. He frowned deeply, and his grip on her arm increased. Then he closed his eyes and she felt warm air and a shaking of the world around her.

After a moment he opened his eyes and released her. “Go.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

He nodded at the doorway and she looked behind her. There was a swirling blue portal there now. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Lisa grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

Val tried to touch Nathaniel, but he moved out of her reach. “But, I need to—”

He glanced over his shoulder then back at her. “For once, just once, do what I ask. There’s no time to argue. They’re coming. Go!”

She looked at him, one last time, and then turned and leaped through the waiting portal.

“I think we’re just damn lucky that wasn’t a portal to Hell,” Reggie commented as Val and

Lisa ran up Niagara’s Clifton Hill. “I mean, Nate wasn’t exactly acting like his usual uncharming self, was he?”

After more than a day in the strangely tropical Underworld, the earthly realm felt positively frigid to Val, who was only wearing her jeans and tank top. Well, it was December, an easy thing to forget when hanging out among palm trees and beaches, even if it was all fake.

Running like a crazy person back to the motel was definitely helping to warm her up a bit.

She didn’t bother answering Reggie. She had to save her energy for the single-minded goal of getting back to the Paradise Inn and using the key. Thinking about anything else—anything else—was just going to throw her concentration off.

For example, she wasn’t going to think about Nathaniel and what just happened at the mansion. His cutting words doing their damage to hurt her, to shake her confidence in him, and then at the last moment, something returned. It was obvious he’d been given behavior modification as punishment for breaking the rules—that was why he’d been so cruel and heartless. But if so, why did he let her escape . . . even creating the portal himself to allow her to escape?