Angel of Chaos (Imp Book 6) (7 page)

I winced, contrasting her angel with Gregory. My angel knew who I was inside, loved all the ways we were different.

“There are assholes in every species. Don’t let your anger for him consume the rest of your life.”

I twitched my wings, anger of my own blooming as I thought about the asshole who had betrayed her trust. Harper’s eyes drifted to the black feathers, and her gaze softened.

“Can I touch them?”

“As long as you put the knife down.” I understood now why angels didn’t run around with their wings exposed. Shit, these things were sensitive.

The woman set the knife on the table and approached the far edge of my wing. Stretching her arm out, she gently ran the tips of her fingers over the feathers.

“How did this happen to you? I was told that demons had no wings beyond the foul ones their low vibration level allowed.”

I was really getting pissed at this angel baby–daddy. What a racist douche–bag.

“It’s a long story. An angel bound me, but it was sort of fucked up, and this was the end result. We were once all like this, you know. We weren’t always demons.”

She backed up, toward the bed, reaching behind her to grab the knife off the bedside table. “But you’re demons now. Some say even with the wings, you’re still a demon.”

“I think I’m something in between. Not demon enough for my brethren in Hel, and not angel enough for those in Aaru. Whatever. I can’t waste time worrying about it.”

Silence stretched on between us. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I leave?

Harper sat on the edge of the bed then seemed to come to some sort of decision. With a slow movement, she opened the drawer on the bedside table and slid the knife into it. “Nyalla says you are in love with an angel. That he loves you back.”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in my voice.

She closed the drawer and raised her hand to gnaw at her thumb. “I thought I was. I thought he loved me back.”

The words were a whisper, and her pain shone out of her dark brown eyes. I hid my wings and walked over to sit on the bed, keeping a few feet between us.

“How did you meet him?”

Harper looked down at her lap. “I grew up in Colorado. The wilderness was right outside; it was my backyard. I’d skied, backpacked, and climbed since I was able to walk. Those sort of activities are like riding a bike for the kids out there. By the time I was in college, I was doing big climbs with a group of friends. Mostly day or weekend trips, but after college we’d all save like crazy to do one big excursion each year.”

I sat with uncharacteristic patience as the woman plucked stray bits from the bedspread. Maybe I needed to get her some Xanax. Between her stabbing habit and this one, my bed covers were going to wind up looking like her fingernails.

“Last year my friends and I had saved enough to go on a sweet ice climb in Alaska. We did a couple of day climbs around Anchorage then hiked to Spencer Glacier for our big climb. It was an amazing trip — we took sea kayaks from basecamp to the ice edge, and then we headed up the ice walls. The glacier is fairly stable, but even so, there are crevasses, moulins, ice caves, and a mountain of snow above. Conditions change as the glacier moves, so even experienced climbers and guides need to be aware.”

She took a couple of deep breaths then clutched her hands tight in her lap. “Anyway, there was an avalanche. We didn’t just fall off the mountain; we fell with about five–hundred pounds of snow and ice. I don’t remember much — just waking up surrounded by blue and white, breathing in a tiny space that surrounded my head. I kept hoping my friends were okay and that they’d find me, that help would arrive soon. The snow — it weighed so much, and I knew my legs were broken, maybe even my back. The space around me was so small that the oxygen wouldn’t have lasted more than a few hours. I lay there, knowing I was as good as dead, and that only a miracle would save me.”

“Shit.” I might be a near immortal, but I could imagine her pain, and the fear and resignation that an inevitable death must have brought her.

“I was in and out for a while — no idea how long — then I saw a bright light. It took a while for my eyes to adjust, for me to realize that I was on top of the snow and ice. An angel stood over me. I don’t know how I knew he was an angel — I just did. I thought I’d died.”

I made a sympathetic noise. “When I first saw my angel, I thought I was going to die.”

Harper gave me a smile that transformed her face. I suddenly saw the lively, outdoorsy woman she’d been back then.

“Well, I wasn’t afraid. I was accepting. I hadn’t exactly led a blameless life up until then. I mean, I was pretty solid on the Ten Commandments, other than the occasional coveting of the neighbor’s BMW and the like. Still, I figured all that was the past, and I’d just need to accept whatever judgment came my way.”

None of that made any sense to me whatsoever. If some angel showed up and tried to judge me, I’d smack him upside the head with my sword. Or a Danish. Or maybe a plate of hot wings. Fucking prudes.

“He bent down and kissed me, and all the pain went away. I could feel my legs and back straighten. They tingled, felt warm. And then he was gone. I heard shouting, and a rescue crew airlifted me out. Everyone said it was a miracle because I had no injuries. My friends hadn’t been saved, though. Days later, their bodies were recovered, buried under twenty feet of snow and ice.”

“You were lucky.” I wondered why the angel had been there at exactly the right time, why he’d chosen her. The whole thing stank like a dead groundhog in the August sun.

The laugh that came from Harper was short and sharp, full of bitterness. “At first I agreed, but now I know better. My friends were lucky. I should have died with them. A part of me
did
die that day. The only thing left when they airlifted me off that mountain was a shell of a woman.”

“But you saw him again.” It couldn’t have been a coincidence. This angel picked her, saved her then went on to have a very forbidden relationship with her. There was a part of me that wondered if he’d fallen in love with the girl he’d saved, if it was all innocent, but the demon in me knew better. We weren’t that different — angels and demons. There was a good chance he’d just taken advantage of the situation — or even caused it in some way.

Harper shook her head and continued. “I chalked the whole thing up to a hallucination, but at the hospital I saw him, as well as the week after I’d been released. Every day I’d catch sight of him walking past me on the street, getting a cup of coffee while I sat and drank mine, or eating at a nearby table.”

She paused in her shredding of the comforter and held her hands outward with a shrug. “I figured it was some kind of sign from my unconscious self, that he was truly my soul mate. We began talking, then dating. I never knew he was an angel, a
real
angel, until after we’d been together for a few months.”

I reached out and caught one of her restless hands in mine. “I’m sorry. Sorry he kept who he was from you, that he got you pregnant and dumped you off here. I’m sworn to take care of you and all you carry, but my primary concern is with you. What do you want? If you had the power to right the world, what would you envision your future to be?”

Harper clenched my hand tight, giving me a wobbly smile. “You’re not much of a demon, are you?”

Damn. Nyalla thinks I’m a ‘nice demon’, and this woman thinks I’m a lousy one. I seriously needed to step up my game.

“If I could go back in time, my friends would be alive. We’d plan other trips, laugh over memories. Then one day, maybe while skiing in Tahoe or rafting down the canyon, I’d meet a man. My heart would beat faster. The moon and stars would freeze as our eyes met, and we’d begin a future together.”

My own heart ached for her. “I can’t resurrect your friends, but there’s no reason why you can’t have the rest. Your life is far from over.”

The woman smiled, and this time her lips didn’t wobble. “Maybe. But for now, I want to have this baby. I want to be able to walk in the sunshine, buy maternity clothes and take pre–natal classes. I want to hold my son in my arms, to watch him grow, to see his first steps, his first day of Kindergarten, to hold him tight when he cries and soothe his fears. I want to watch him walk down the aisle for graduation, for his wedding. I want to spoil his children rotten. Somehow I think that fantasy is just as farfetched as the resurrection of my friends.”

This woman might be a lot of things but she wasn’t blind to the danger she and her child were in. “And what about the father? What place does he have in this future?”

Harper’s face twisted in fury. “Do you know what he wanted me to do? Do you know what he asked … no,
commanded
of me?”

I felt chilled. Angels considered babies and children free of sin, the highest in their vibration patterns. In spite of that, they still sentenced Nephilim to death. Had the father wanted her to abort the baby? I looked at Harper and shook my head. “What did he command of you?”

“To hide away, and when the baby was born to give it over to monsters to raise. Then I was to come back to him and resume our relationship. How could I do that? How could I ever love him again, knowing that he’d ripped our baby from my arms? How could he ever expect me to feel the same about him after that?”

She’d become increasingly agitated as she spoke, picking at the covers then tearing at her cuticles with her stubby nails. I reached out and captured both her hands in mind, scooting closer.

“How did you get pregnant? I mean… .” How the fuck was I supposed to ask this? I had no idea about angel reproduction. With demons, insemination was always intentional. With angels, I had no stinking clue.

Harper made a short choking noise. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t know. I was on the pill, and I’m very careful. No other medicine to interact, nothing. Maybe I’m just that zero, zero, zero, one percent.”

Or maybe this angel had his own agenda, which selfishly violated Harper’s trust.

“What did he do when he found out you were pregnant? Was he angry? Upset?”

She shook her head. “No, he seemed as if he knew already. He was kind of excited, but worried too. Right away, he said the baby needed to be safe, and that if I wanted it to live, I needed to give it away. Is that true? Was he lying to me?”

Shit. How to break this one to her? “It’s true. The angelic host takes a dim view on Nephilim — the offspring of angels and humans. They are condemned to death, and the angels involved in their breeding suffer punishment.”

Harper yanked her hands from mine and covered her mouth. Her body shook. “My son is as good as dead, isn’t he?” Her words were muffled.

“I’m sorry. He was a total shit — the angel that did this to you. I’ll do the best I can to protect you and your baby, but I don’t know if I can give you the future you want. Heck, I don’t know if I can promise your baby any future at all.”

She began crying in earnest, sobbing into her hands.

“Give me his name. Tell me who the father is, and I’ll make sure he suffers. I’m the Iblis, the Ha–Satan. I’m on the Ruling Council. I’ll see him punished for this, try to get him banished to Hel. Do you know what the demons would do to him there? It would be a fitting end for the shithead that did this to you.”

Harper shook her head violently and gasped, trying to get herself under control. “Ben Jackson. That’s the only name I knew him by, and somehow I doubt it was his angel name. I hate him. I hate what he’s done to me. I’d kill him with my own hands if I knew I could, but I’m not sure I can condemn the father of my child to Hel.”

Humans. Sometimes I just didn’t get them at all. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do to protect your son. In the meantime, pretend you’re on vacation. Relax by the pool; check out all the baby stuff online. Do you ride horses? Piper is really sweet. You could safely ride him. Or I could install some climbing handholds on the side of the barn.”

I felt so helpless. Nothing I could do would make this right. Nothing would guarantee her baby’s safety. All my suggestions were just a desperate attempt to distract her from the grim future ahead.

“Thanks.” Harper gave me a watery smile. “You’re not so bad — for a demon, that is. Nyalla is nice, too. She offered to have her friend come over with her baby, to make me feel more like this was all normal.”

Ugh. More baby smell. I’d hoped to put that off for at least another few months.

“That’s a great idea.” I forced a smile. “Nyalla has already been decorating the other room for the nursery. She’s a very good friend to have.”

–7–

L
ate night wasn’t quite what I’d expected. Gregory sat beside me, thumbing through my reports — not exactly the most romantic of activities, but given our other company, it was probably the most I could expect for tonight. Hot wings had been a bit of a bust, and I was suspecting my angel might have vegetarian tendencies. We’d returned to the safety of food groups I knew he was more inclined to enjoy.

Harper sat as far away from the angel as possible, trying to look relaxed as she shot him sideways glances. Her expression fluctuated between anxious and fascinated. Nyalla was on the other couch, as equally entertained by the Three’s Company rerun as she was Gregory’s strange obsession with snack foods.

“How about Skittles? Have you tried them yet? Or are you more of a chocolate kind of person … um, angel?”

“I have not had Skittles, or chocolate, but I have discovered that I enjoy Jolly Rancher candies. The watermelon flavor in particular.”

Harper pursed her lips. “Cherry. And green apple. I’m a Jolly Rancher kinda gal myself.”

I smiled to see her making an effort to join the conversation. “The best thing about Jolly Ranchers is the way they cement your teeth together. Just chomp down hard, and you won’t be able to open your mouth without a crowbar. If you’ve got fillings in your teeth, expect them to come out.”

“I have not tried that particular technique, Cockroach.” Gregory’s voice drawled. His eyes sparkled with humor as he paged through my report. “I will have to try that with the cherry and green apple. And try this
chocolate
, too.”