Michelle Rowen - Wicked Kiss

Not at first glance, anyway.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A friend,” I told her, forcing myself to sound calm. “My name’s Samantha.”

She swallowed hard. “Why are you following me?”

“Because we want to help you. We know you’re having problems. We know you don’t know who you are.”

Her blue eyes widened. “How could you know that?”

“Magic,” Roth said with a thin, unpleasant smile.

Bishop was the one who always performed the ritual, but he wasn’t making any sudden moves.

“I think I hit my head.” She scrubbed her hand through her blond hair. “I woke up earlier and I—I didn’t know where I was. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a little while, so...thanks, but I don’t need any help.”

Despite the chill in the air, sweat dripped down my back and my palms were damp. “You will be fine. I promise.”

“Samantha’s right. You’ll be fine.” Bishop finally pulled the curved golden dagger out of the sheath he wore under his shirt, along his spine.

Her eyes shot to it immediately and widened with fear. “What is that?”

“Check her back.”

Kraven grabbed hold of both of her wrists in one hand. He pulled at her sweater and she let out a frightened shriek.

I stormed forward and punched him in his arm. “Do you have to be such a jerk? You’re scaring her!”

“Sorry, sweetness. There isn’t really a polite way to do this.”

“Samantha, please don’t let them hurt me,” the girl begged. A tear slid down her cheek and she trembled, but didn’t try very hard to break away from Kraven’s grip.

My heart wrenched for her. “I need to check something real quick. Everything will be better soon. You need to trust me, okay?”

“O-okay.” Her voice quaked.

I took a deep breath and pulled her sweater up her back a few inches so I could see her skin. The lines of the tattoo I’d been hoping to see were visible immediately, wrapping right around her sides and past the waistline of her jeans.

“Is it there?” Bishop asked.

A small but immediate measure of relief coursed through me. “She has an imprint. She’s definitely the right one.”

She stared at me with confusion. “An imprint? What’s an imprint?”

I nodded and returned her sweater to its previous position. “Something that will make everything all right in just a minute.” I looked into her blue eyes and the fear I felt for her must have been reflected there. The panic instantly returned to her gaze.

Her breath came quicker. “What do you mean? What are you going to do to me?”

“Do it, Bishop,” I bit out, nausea coursing through my gut. “Quickly.”

I thought he’d hesitate and show some sign of reluctance for what he had to do. Sometimes I mistook him for a gentle angel who struggled with sanity and needed help from time to time.

But he wasn’t gentle. And he didn’t need any help right now. He was a warrior who didn’t flinch when it came to taking action.

He nudged me out of the way and looked in the girl’s eyes. A coldness moved over his face that scared me.

“Be brave,” he said, as if issuing a command. Then he thrust the dagger into her chest without another moment’s hesitation.

My knees gave out at the same time hers did.

It’s the ritual, I told myself over and over. She’s not human. This isn’t really murder.

The only way a demon or angel could get their memories back after passing through the invisible barrier and into Trinity was to temporarily die—provided that death came from Bishop’s very special golden dagger. The dagger did something, some magic, which removed their protective shielding and restored their former sense of self.

If they were ever stabbed again with the same dagger, however, it would kill them.

I stared down at the blonde girl now lying on the ground of the alley with the dagger sticking out of her chest.

“That was so awesome,” Roth breathed.

“You’re sick,” I snarled at him.

“Your point?” The demon leaned over and yanked the dagger out of her chest when Bishop didn’t reach for it first.

My mind reeled over witnessing this horrible act yet again. “I need to talk to you, Bishop. Alone. Now.”

“Uh-oh,” Kraven said. “Somebody’s in trouble.”

“Fine.” Bishop nodded to the left. “Let’s go over there.”

“Need a chaperone?” Kraven asked. “Wouldn’t want her to get any ideas. Maybe fake murder turns gray-girl on.”

Bishop sent a glare in his direction. “Stay here and watch over the girl.”

“Eat me.”

Apparently, Bishop took that as a “yes, I’ll stay here and watch over the girl.” He led me to a spot farther down the alley and just around the corner. I cast a last glance at the blonde now lying as if dead on the pavement of the alley while two demons lurked nearby waiting for her to wake up again.

“I told you to leave,” Bishop said, his voice and expression equally tight. He wasn’t meeting my gaze. “So if you’re upset about what I had to do, you only have yourself to blame. I was doing my job. I didn’t enjoy that.”

I knew he was right. It was his job—one he was remarkably and chillingly good at. “Look, I—I’m sorry about what happened at Crave tonight. I know you’re mad at me.”

“You think I’m mad?”

“You should be mad.”

“Should I?” He raised an eyebrow, his harsh expression finally thawing at the edges. “Okay, then I’m mad.”

“I knew it.”

“Still, you should have left. I know the ritual upsets you. Especially since it was a girl this time.”

“Which is kind of ridiculous. I’d all but gotten used to it happening to boys. Why should a girl be any different? Maybe I’m the sexist one here.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“You didn’t hesitate. Not even a second.”

“Does that bother you?”

“A little,” I admitted, but held his gaze. “Are there a lot of female angels?”

“Is that what she is? I didn’t see the imprint.”

I nodded. Since angels and demons didn’t have actual wings here in the human world—apparently such things were not physical as much as they were metaphysical—they did retain the mark of such wings. It looked like a large tattoo that stretched across their backs and down their sides. Angel wings were pale with delicate, feathery lines. Demon wings were bold and black and webbed. It was the only way to tell them apart at a glance.

“There are an equal number of male and female angels,” he said.

“Equal. Everything’s equal,” I grumbled. “Got to keep the balance on the universal teeter-totter, don’t you?”

He studied my face. “I know you’re upset.”

I didn’t break our eye contact. “Did you really tell Roth he could kill me if I screw up?”

He didn’t speak for a moment. “No.”

The demon had said it with such certainty, there had to be more to this. I needed to know the truth. “Then what did you say that gave him that idea?”

His gaze grew fiercer. “You can’t let what happened earlier with that boy ever happen again. It’s too dangerous, Samantha.”

It was so cold tonight—or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just me and my soulless side effects. My coat wasn’t thick enough to keep me warm. The tights I wore under my skirt were too thin. I shivered. “That’s the real reason you’ve stayed away from me this week. So I wouldn’t be tempted to kiss you again. So I wouldn’t hurt you again.”

His vivid blue eyes burned into mine. “You didn’t hurt me the first time.”

“But I could next time.”

“We don’t know that for sure.” He wrenched his gaze away from me, his expression shadowing. “I kept my distance because I needed to know if this pull I feel toward you was because of what you are. If this soul inside me has been a magnet drawing me closer to you since the first moment we met.”