Kendra Leigh Castle - Renegade Angel

It was the perfect solution.

Uriel’s jaw tightened to the point Raum thought it might crack … and wouldn’t that have been satisfying … but finally, he rose stiffly and fixed Raum with eyes that were full of warring emotions. Raum himself felt nothing but disgust. Uriel was everything that was wrong with the angels, letting his heart rule alongside his mind, placing some misguided idea of right and wrong above cold logic. He had grown past him.

Then how do you explain what you’re doing right now?

The whisper in his mind was soft, insidious, the shadow of the demon who had been celebrated as the Destroyer of Dignities before being brought low. The demon, he thought with a furious sort of determination, he still was. Still, the voice made his blood run cold.

Uriel’s eyes narrowed, but he turned to Levi. “Let me know,” was all he said. Then he was gone, slamming out of the bar with such force that the door frame cracked.

They sat in silence, the three of them, the faint sound of music from the jukebox the only sound in the nearly empty bar. Finally, Gadreel broke the silence.

“Well,” he said with a humorless flash of his teeth. “That was fun. Now if you’ll excuse me, before I dash off to find the Nexus and save the world, I believe there are several deadly sins that require my immediate attention.”

He stood, pushed in his chair and strode off in the direction of the waitresses, who were still huddled by the kitchen door and watching him hungrily.

Raum watched him go, forcing himself to relax his grip on the bottle before it shattered in his hand. He felt Leviathan’s eyes on him, but ignored that searching stare. He wasn’t in the mood. He hated talking, and he hated company. And he particularly hated Gadreel.

His gaze drifted back to the little shop across the street, and just for an instant, his eyes met Ember’s. There was a hot rush of awareness, like being caught in a sudden blast of desert wind, and the hair on his arms, the back of his neck, rose at the electricity that seemed to snap through the air between them.

He watched her flush and turn away, retreating farther into the store where he couldn’t see her. All he was left with was a toxic combination of fury at his want of her and utterly reckless, overwhelming desire.

Ember woke in a cold sweat, thrashing her way to the surface until she realized that all she was fighting were her sheets, twisted around her body.

She’d had the nightmare again: a red desert. A gaping hole in the sand full of living, writhing horrors … a hole she had created. And all the while, the beautiful, terrifying man with the wings looking on approvingly. He had given her the words, though by now she knew them by heart … and as it always did, power had poured out of her like rain in a summer storm.

Not like when she was awake, living life as an undercover mutant without a cause. Though she didn’t think she would ever want that sort of power in her real life.

She’d had dreams like that off and on since she was a kid, an awkward little redhead with few friends, a dad whom she’d never met and who was only ever referred to as “that good-for-nothing scumbag,” and a mother who alternated between ignoring her and hating her. They were always scary. But in a way, they’d been kind of comforting. At least the man with the wings, the Bad Angel, as she’d always thought of him, hadn’t judged her so harshly as everyone else. He’d liked the things that made her different.

Too bad he was just as unreal as her stupid dreams. Then again, she wasn’t completely sure she wanted to meet that guy in real life. Not that he’d ever hurt her, but she’d never been able to shake the impression that he’d be a much nastier customer in person than she could ever be in her worst moments.

A soft, tapping sound jerked Ember from her jumbled waking thoughts, bringing her crashing back to the dark silence of her room. Or near silence. Ember lay utterly still, warm beneath her covers, hearing nothing but the faintly ragged sound of her own breathing. Moonlight poured in her window, the wind making the shadows of trees dance across her wall.

Ember exhaled slowly.

Calm down, she told herself. It was just her frayed nerves playing tricks on her, that was all. There was no doubt that her week had been one of the weirdest in recent memory, and she could pinpoint exactly when it had started: the second the tall, dark and strangely irresistible man had wandered into her shop and sent her sex drive into nuclear territory. She hadn’t had a reaction like that since puberty had hit her like an oncoming train, but even so, this time had been different. She’d never felt called to a man like that.

Of course, Ember was pretty sure she’d never seen a man quite like that. Period. But still …

She’d just begun to relax, accepting that she was only freaking herself out, when she heard it again.

Ember blinked the sleep from her eyes, and everything in the dark room came into sharp relief. As annoying as her weirdness could be, being able to see in the dark occasionally came in handy. She slowly sat up, telling herself that it was nothing, even as adrenaline began to pump through her system.

Then she saw them, twin red coals watching her unblinkingly from right outside her window. Her heart stuttered in her chest, and Ember barely stifled a small scream as her hand went to her mouth. The red pinpoints bored into her, unblinking …

Then it fluttered its wings, and the illusion was bro ken. Moonlight glinted in eyes that were no longer red. Wind lifted shadows that became feathers.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ember found herself fending off a fit of nervous laughter. It was a crow. Not a demon, not Poe’s ominous raven, but a common crow, probably cold and taking a breather from the tempestuous night wind. Except …

Ember narrowed her eyes, taking a good look at it. It couldn’t be the same bird, but damn it, it looked just like the enormous crow that had taken up residence at her shop. It had been there all week, perched on the sign, or the window-sill or the tree planted in the sidewalk just down from her door. Weird, she thought with an involuntary little shiver. Even weirder was that she hadn’t been able to shake the sensation that the bird wasn’t just hanging around, but watching her. Which made no sense. As little sense, in fact, as her continuing obsession with the fact that the crow had arrived on Monday afternoon, not long after she’d seen Raum in Mick’s, the bar across the street. And he had been watching her then.

She’d broken three more bottles of essence after that.

“Not thinking about it. Not going there,” Ember said aloud, hoping the sound of her own voice would add a little more reality to the decidedly surreal night. Bolstered, if only a little, she addressed the bird on the sill.

“Fly away, birdie. Go home. No vacancy.”

It really was a beautiful bird, Ember thought as it watched her unblinkingly, the largest crow she’d ever seen, at least up close. She knew they were scavengers, but they were supposed to be really smart, too. This one certainly looked as if it had its wits about it. But enough to follow her home from work?

As she watched, it held her gaze, leaned forward. Then:

Tap tap tap.

It wanted in.

“No way, ” Ember murmured, amazed. She’d sure as hell never seen a bird wanting to visit inside someone’s house before. Obviously, all it would do if she opened the window would be to either fly off into the night, or worse, to come in and then freak out about what it had thought it wanted. But … what if it was tame? Someone’s escaped pet, caught in the oncoming storm? What if it wasn’t used to being outside and would wind up dead if she left it in the cold?