Angel Betrayed (24 page)

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Authors: Cynthia Eden

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #General

BOOK: Angel Betrayed
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“Go to hell,” Seline told the hound instantly.
The hound didn’t vanish. In fact, the beast appeared to be getting bigger, stronger. Not good.
When they weren’t in hell, the hounds survived by drinking blood and fear. They weren’t some cute freaking pets. They were pit bulls for the devil.
But Seline was
petting
the thing now.
Sam risked a fast glance around the club. The stragglers were rushing for the door. Smart. But even as those folks pushed out, two familiar figures hurried forward.
Keenan and his vampire.
Keenan took one look at the hound and froze. He grabbed Nicole and tried to push her behind his back.
Fuck.
Too late. Over the centuries, hounds had developed a particular taste for vampire blood.
Seline’s hound whipped around and leapt into the air. The floor shook as the beast hurtled toward its new treat.
“No!” Seline’s shout, but this time, the beast didn’t slow. Claws swiped out and cut into Keenan’s chest, but the Fallen didn’t move.
“Run, Nicole,” he choked out,
“run.”
Wrong advice. The hounds liked the chase. Keenan should know that.
Keenan grabbed the hound’s paws. Sam rushed to help him, with Seline right by his side.
With a howl, the hound shook off Keenan, and Sam saw that Nicole hadn’t run away. She started kicking and clawing at the beast. Her fangs were out, and she was screaming for the hound to get away from her angel.
Before Sam could reach her, the hound tackled her and the beast’s teeth went for her throat.
Nicole stopped screaming, but the whole room vibrated with the sudden wild rush of fury that Sam knew came from Keenan.
Sam and Keenan grabbed the hound. They dragged it off Nicole even as the hound snapped and bit.
Then Seline was there. Her hands locked around the hound’s body.
“Leave her alone! Leave them all alone!”
Fury hardened her words. “Just get the hell away from us.
Go back to hell
!”
The hound whined. Its head lowered.
Then the beast vanished in a blur of smoke.
About fucking time.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
 
S
am hadn’t been lying to her. Seline stared at her hands and realized her fingers were stained with ash.
She’d just sent a hellhound back to hell.
She
controlled a hellhound.
Oh, damn.
“Baby, are you okay?”
She glanced up at the voice, so deep with concern. Keenan had his vampire in his arms. Seline could see the blood pouring from the woman’s throat.
Okay
sure didn’t seem like the right word. More like get-me-to-a-hospital-stat.
“Drink from me,” Keenan said, his hands so gentle on the woman.
Nicole’s head sagged back weakly, and Seline glimpsed her fangs. Then those fangs sank into Keenan. He shuddered. Not with revulsion, but with what she was pretty sure had to be pleasure.
“She’ll be all right.” Sam’s voice didn’t carry any concern. “Angel’s blood—even if the angel has fallen—is incredibly strong.”
Something to remember.
“How did I send him back?” Her gaze darted to the floor. To the scorch marks and the deep grooves that the hound’s claws had left.
“Guess you just had to get mad enough,” he said. “Mad enough to let that control of yours crack.”
Crack? It had fragmented there in that last terrifying moment. If she hadn’t been able to pull the hound back, Nicole would have died in front of her. “I didn’t want more blood on my hands.” She didn’t know Nicole. Just because the woman was a vamp, it didn’t mean she deserved hell.
Who did these days?
Sirens screamed in the distance.
“Humans . . . on the way to the rescue.” Keenan said this even as Nicole continued to drink from him.
“You’ve got her?” Sam asked with a nod at Nicole.
“Always.” Keenan’s answer was immediate.
Sam’s lips twisted. “Then get her out of here. Meet up with me at dawn, at Pedro’s place.”
Keenan’s brows rose. “You trust that shifter?”
“More than most.”
Keenan nodded and carried his feeding vampire toward the back door.
Seline didn’t move. She wasn’t sure where to go or what to do. Energy still pumped through her blood. She’d taken too much when she kissed Sam, she knew she had, but he didn’t look weak.
If the hound had killed him, Sam’s death would have been on her. She straightened her shoulders. “You need to go. Get away from me. What if I accidentally bring the hound back? You just—
go.
”
One dark brow climbed. “And what are you going to do? Stand here and wait for the cops?”
Maybe. Perhaps she deserved to be locked up. “You said the coyote shifter was dead?”
“Not by your hand. The hound killed him.”
The sirens were louder. “I meant to kill him. I took as much power from him as I could.” It was time for Sam to realize just how dark she was on the inside.
“If he’d still been breathing when I found him,” Sam said, “
I
would have killed him.”
His admission had her eyes widening.
Sam’s stare had dropped to the front of her shirt. “I can see the marks he put on you.”
She could feel them. “Just scratches. They’ll fade.”
Doors slammed outside. She glanced toward the front door. “How will we explain this?” Her gaze came back to him.
“We won’t.” He still didn’t move. “The cops will say the people who talk about a monster attacking them are all just high.
Other
events always have a way of being covered up.”
She knew many humans only saw what they wanted to see. “And the dead shifter? What happens when he’s found?” The front door rattled. She glanced over and realized that thick tables had been pushed in front of the entrance.
Sam. She hadn’t even realized he’d used his power to bar the door.
“There won’t be anything left of him by the time he’s found.”
Again, the way of their world. The real animals would have their turn.
“Come with me.” He offered his hand but didn’t step closer.
She shook her head.
His face hardened. “We both have too many enemies now. You need me,” he said, “and I—”
Seline turned away and headed for the back door. Her steps were fast.
Get away.
“I know, you’re addicted to me, right?”
Unfortunately, that addiction burned both ways.
Her father had been addicted, too. So addicted that one night, he hadn’t been able to stop taking energy from her mother. He’d taken so much that he’d killed her.
She pushed open the old door. Metal grated, and she glanced to the left, then the right. The cops hadn’t made it to the alley yet.
Seline hurried outside.
“It’s more than an addiction.”
She kept moving.
He followed. The soft pad of his footsteps should have been swallowed by the sirens, but she heard him. She’d always been too conscious of everything about him.
Sam grabbed her arm and spun her back to face him. He crowded her against the side of the narrow alley.
“Don’t move,” his breath whispered over her ear. “Cops are coming.”
And the cops thundered past the mouth of their hiding spot. Heading toward for
El Diablo,
and not even noticing the couple in the shadows.
But Sam didn’t release her when they were gone. She was too aware of the solid length of his body and the heavy press of his arousal against her.
She wanted Sam. Had from the first moment she’d seen him. But had he ever really wanted
her?
Or had her succubus side just pulled him in, an automatic instinct to acquire that strong psychic blast of power that was his core?
“I’m not going to run from Rogziel,” Sam said. “I don’t care how many hounds he has at his beck and call.” His mouth brushed against her cheek.
Seline swallowed and tried
not
to want him so much. He didn’t trust her. He’d threatened to kill her—
“I’m going hunting, Seline.” His fingers slid under her jaw. The cops were gone. Probably swarming the empty interior of
El Diablo.
“And I want you by my side.”
Her hands came between them and pressed against his chest. She had so much power boiling inside her, if she wanted she could have tossed him into the air and walked way.
The problem was that she didn’t want to walk away. She’d found something she wanted more than freedom. “I didn’t think you trusted me.”
“I’m an asshole most days.” She felt the hot lick of his tongue on the edge of her ear.
A shiver trembled over her.
“With you . . . something happens to me.”
Great. Still not the declaration she wanted to hear.
“I don’t trust
myself
when I’m with you,” Sam continued. “I want you too much.”
She needed more than
want
. There’d been too many other men who wanted her.
There had to be more.
She pushed him back. Not a toss into the air, just a shove that gave her a few precious inches. “I’m an abomination.” She’d been called that before. Heard Rogziel say it when he hadn’t realized she’d been around.
But now, she knew Rogziel had been right. The powers of a succubus and an angel, all boiling inside of her. “Only punishment angels can control hellhounds.” Even she knew that much. “I’m no angel.” Would never be. The wings and the sweet promise of heaven hadn’t been offered to her.
His fingers were still under her chin. “Do you know how the first demons were made?”
She knew the legend. “From the Fallen.” From the first angels who’d sinned and been cast out of heaven. “They mated with humans and their offspring were cursed.”
He laughed at that. “I’m betting you heard that tale from Rogziel, didn’t you?”
Yes.
“It’s all in how you look at it,” he murmured. “Maybe they weren’t cursed, maybe they were blessed . . . given powers no mortal had ever held before.”
Now it was her turn to give a rough laugh. “That blessing killed many of them.”
“And it turned some of them into kings and queens. They were given the power, and the free will to use it how they saw fit.” He closed the distance between them again.
“You’re telling me I’m blessed?” More sirens. She wanted out of there. That small alley was making her feel claustrophobic. “I’m not buying it.” She pushed away from him and headed toward the darkness that waited for her.
“I’m saying you’re a whole lot stronger than you realized, than Rogziel probably realized. But now that he knows just what you’re capable of, he’s going to come after you with everything that he has at his disposal.”
She knew that. She’d taken Rogziel’s attack dog away from him. The angel would have viewed that as the ultimate insult.
“You can wait for him to come . . .” Sam’s feet tapped on the old stone walkway. “Or you can hunt with me, and we can kick his ass.”
That had been the original plan. The darkness thickened as she advanced down the alley. More bars waited. More drunken laughter. More sex on the breeze that tickled her face.
“When you decide I’ve turned on you again—what then?” Seline asked because she wasn’t just going to forget. Some things could never be forgotten. “I saw your eyes in that truck. You were ready to kill me.”
“If I’d been ready to kill you, you would’ve been dead.” Flat. Brutal. Truth.
Another club beckoned. She slipped inside, leaving him to the shadows. She just needed some space. Seline went to the bar. Motioned with her hand for a drink. She didn’t care what the bartender gave her. She just needed something to take the edge off right then.
The guy on her right immediately sidled closer. The man on the left crowded in against her. Seline looked in the mirror and barely recognized the woman who stared back at her. Blood-red lips. Heavy-lidded eyes. Skin a shade no human’s should be.
Her top had torn in the struggle, and her breasts pushed against the fabric. No wonder the men were closing in.
Built for sin.
The guy on the right, an American frat boy who’d wandered into the wrong bar, ran his fingers down her arm. “
Hola,
sexy
señorita,
where have you been all my—”
Sam’s image appeared behind her in the mirror. He grabbed the kid’s fingers and squeezed. “Want me to break them?” he asked, his voice bland, but she caught the fury flaring in his eyes.
“Shit! Shit, man, no! Ow!”
“Then don’t touch her again.” Sam shoved the college boy away. He glanced at the other man. “Get the hell out of here.”
Both men scrambled for the exit. Seline took her drink and downed it in one gulp. It burned her throat, and she wanted more.
“You can’t be out now, Seline.” Sam positioned his body too close to hers.
She motioned for another drink.
Daughter of a demon. Daughter of an angel. Made for sin.
She stared at her image. “And why not?”
“Because your powers are cranked too high.” He swore, then turned his head to the right. “Back off, assholes, she’s with me.”
Two more men turned away.
His hand fisted on the bar top. “You’re pulling them in, and you don’t even realize it.”
No, she realized it. There was just nothing she could do to stop the pull.
“I’ve slept with three men in my life.” Her confession seemed too loud even in the noisy bar. “This isn’t what I wanted to be.” But maybe there had never been a choice. Seduce. Kill.
Had Rogziel been right about her? If he could see her now...
He’d laugh, then he’d kill her.
 
The long, twisting house in the woods had served many purposes over the years. Weapons storage. Hideaway. Lover’s retreat.
Tonight, it was a prison.
Rogziel stared down at the Fallen who knelt in the middle of the holding spell. He’d learned over the years that even witches could have their uses, and he’d certainly made sure to use the witch Mateo as much as he could.
Some spells could bind any being, even a Fallen. Not forever, of course. But he didn’t need forever. He just needed a few hours. “Ready to talk, Tomas?”
Tomas’s dark head lifted. He smiled. “Go fuck yourself, ’Ziel. I don’t answer to you.”
A growl rumbled from the shadows behind Rogziel. This time, he’d made sure to summon the hound that belonged to him. Using Erina’s hound had seemed like such a fitting vengeance before. But obviously, that plan had been a mistake.

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