Rebel (3 page)

His laugh was totally mirthless. “If I weren’t an angel, I’d be dead,” he said. “So . . . what’s your name again? Mary?”

Despite his proximity, some of my tension drained away. He couldn’t even remember my name. More proof that those dreams had been an aberration, a mishmash of my own useless longing.

“Martha,” I corrected.

“Martha,” he repeated, as if it would take a serious effort to commit it to memory. “I should have known. You’re much more of a Martha than a Mary, aren’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I hated the biblical stereotypes of Martha, the hardworking martyr, and Mary, the soulful free spirit.

He was wise enough not to wait for me to respond. “So tell me, Martha. When did Raziel take over as leader of the Fallen, and why?”

I eyed him warily. “Sarah was killed in an attack by the Nephilim, and Azazel . . . decided to leave.”

“But he’s back. With a new mate? Why?”

I considered whether to answer him. “Shouldn’t you ask Raziel about all this?”

“I prefer to go into battle with all the information I can get.”

“Battle?” I echoed, disturbed. “What if I don’t care to arm you?”

He ignored my question. “Who’s Azazel’s new wife? Is she the Source?”

It was too much trouble trying to put him off. “Allie is the Source. She’s Raziel’s wife, and when Sarah died she took over. As for Azazel, he was prophesied to marry the demon Lilith.”

“Knowing Azazel, he probably decided to kill her instead.”

I wasn’t about to tell him he was right. “He’s married to her,” I said dryly.

Cain didn’t look surprised. “You mean that sweet-looking woman? Well, he was always fairly adaptable. Do you know why everyone’s so fucking happy to see me?”

It wasn’t as if the Fallen didn’t use those words, frequently and with force. Even I used them. But
for some reason the word
fucking
coming from his mouth now summoned far too literal thoughts.

“You’d know better than I,” I replied in a businesslike manner, not hesitating in my ministrations. “I’d never heard of you before today.”

“Liar,” he said softly, and my eyes jerked up, startled, meeting his directly for the first time. A mistake. His were much too knowing, and meeting his gaze was uncomfortably intimate. I stared at him, long and hard. I wanted to look away, but that would be showing cowardice, and I didn’t dare. Not with this man.

“I assure you, we don’t sit around discussing you,” I said in a suitably icy voice. “I’ve only been here ten years, but in all that time I’ve never heard your name mentioned. What did you do to make everyone hate you?”

“It’s my winning personality.” He tilted his head, surveying me. His mouth was swollen, his lower lip split, and I dabbed at that as well, ignoring the grin beneath my hand. “I’m not saying people were talking about me. I’d think everyone here was happy to think I was gone forever. I’m just saying you knew my name, didn’t you, Mary?”

“Martha,” I snapped, goaded. And then realized he’d done it on purpose, just to annoy me. “And unless you rose up and slew your brother and went to dwell in the land east of Eden, there’s no way I
would have heard your name.” As I dabbed at his lip, he caught my hand again, wrapping his long fingers around mine, his thumb in the center of my palm. Pressing. Massaging.

“Such a liar. No, I haven’t killed my brother. Humans don’t become angels, it’s the other way around—and even if they did, I wouldn’t earn the honor by committing fratricide. You’re the seer. You knew I was coming.”

“My visions aren’t very . . . reliable. I knew
someone
was coming,” I corrected, pulling my hand. He wasn’t letting go. “That doesn’t mean I knew it was you.” I didn’t lie. I had grown up lying in order to survive, and I had promised myself that I would never lie again once I entered the safety of Sheol. But I had become an expert at avoiding an honest answer.

The man holding my hand was more than a match for my semantics. “No, it doesn’t mean you knew. But you did. Didn’t you?”

I was having a hard time concentrating. The combination of his thumb pressing against my palm and his silver-bright eyes looking into mine seemed to have sent my brain on a road trip. I blinked, trying to break the insidious spell he was casting over me, and managed to summon a counterattack rather than an answer.

“I’m not used to being manhandled,” I said icily. “Let go of me.”

“Not used to being manhandled?” he scoffed lightly. “More’s the pity. Some man needs to handle you well and often. What’s up with old Thomas that he can’t take proper care of his wife’s needs? Not that he ever was a ball of fire, but I don’t remember his previous wives complaining. Mind you, they were all a fairly stolid, boring bunch, not a live wire among them. I think you might have more fire.”

If he thought the mention of Thomas’s previous wives would wound me, he was mistaken. I hadn’t a jealous bone in my body. “What’s wrong with Thomas is that he’s dead. He was killed in a battle with the Nephilim.”

I’d hoped to shame him, but he didn’t even blink. “How long?”

If he’d released my hand, I would have punched him in the mouth myself. “Seven years. Would you please let go of me?”

“And have you punch me in the mouth? I don’t think so.”

His words shocked me, and I froze. How could he possibly know what I was thinking? I was adept at keeping my face a polite mask, and I’d been wary of this man from the start. Even Thomas hadn’t been able to penetrate all my defenses—I’d always kept a part of me locked away. In Sheol, bonded mates could sense each other’s thoughts with varying degrees of accuracy, but I had always resisted that particular
intimacy. And now this dangerous stranger was sensing what I most wanted to keep hidden.

“Why do you say that?” I asked carefully.

“Because most people want to punch me in the mouth after being in my company.”

I could feel my shoulders relax. “True enough. However, I’m here to heal you, not to make things worse. If you’ll let go of me, I’ll find you an ice bag to bring the swelling down and some dry clothes.”

His thumb still rubbed against the softness of my palm, slowly, mesmerizing me. “My mouth will heal on its own, and my clothes are almost dry already. I think I’d rather hold your hand.”

That was enough. I yanked myself free, and this time he let me go with a soft laugh. “You are far too transparent, Mary.”

“Martha.” This cheered me. If he thought I was transparent, then he was underestimating me, always a good thing. I summoned a deceptively calm smile. “What you see is what you get.”

“Not exactly.” He smelled of sun and salt water and warm male skin, the scent potent and arousing, bringing all sorts of strange feelings alive inside me. Ones I was more than capable of ignoring. “How long do we have until we’re supposed to meet Raziel and the others?”

“We should be there now.”

He cocked his head. “Too bad. I was thinking I
might like to take you to bed, just to see if I could rattle that alarming self-control of yours.”

He’d meant to shock me, and he had, but I didn’t show it. I laughed, sounding genuinely amused. After all, it was simply an empty bluff. “Don’t be absurd. If you’re in need of a woman, Raziel can make arrangements for you. You don’t even have to leave Sheol.”

“I have no intention of leaving Sheol, at least not right now. And I can find my own woman.” His eyes slid over me like a cool, wicked caress. “You’d do for starters.” And before I realized what was happening he’d moved, faster than my eyes could follow, and I was backed up against a wall, his body pressing against mine.

I
T WAS SO EASY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
boring, Cain thought. He’d always liked a challenge, and the seer, Martha, was reacting just as he’d intended. He crowded her up against the wall, his body barely brushing hers, just to see what she’d do. Whether she’d put her hands on him in an effort to push him away. And whether he’d pretend to let her, or not.

She was nothing special, particularly compared to the kind of woman he usually had. She was small and curvy, with a cap of short brown curls, big hazel eyes trying to look fearless, smooth skin, and a soft, vulnerable mouth that belied all her attempts to appear unmoved. She was a fighter, though. He had to grant her that. She kept her hands at her sides.

“We’re due in the assembly room.” Her voice was completely calm, and he bit back a smile.

“And if we’re late?”

She looked at him. She’d avoided meeting his gaze at first, and he wondered why. Maybe she simply had good sense in recognizing a predator when one homed in on her. Or maybe she actually had had a premonition about him. But now she was looking at him full-on, as if in doing so she could prove he had no effect on her.

Poor baby. He was just beginning.

He hadn’t decided whether she’d be his partner in crime or not. He’d yet to see what else Sheol provided nowadays. He’d been thrown a curve—he’d had no idea that Azazel had stepped down from his place as leader of the Fallen. He would have to adjust, but he was good at that. The best plans were fluid, responding to change, and Martha the seer might be just the right sort of change. If he took someone’s bonded mate, the shit would really hit the fan in a most satisfactory manner, but he wasn’t convinced that was his best approach. Not that he believed in either the sanctity or even the existence of those bonds. But the Fallen and their mates did, which lay at the core of the chaos he intended to bring down on their heads.

He smiled down at the girl, at his most charming, but she surveyed him stonily, and he stepped back without letting the full length of his body touch hers. He couldn’t afford to waste time, but he would be
smart not to rush a decision this important. Thomas’s widow seemed soft and quiet and malleable. She might easily bore him.

“You’ll need to lead the way, Mary,” he said, and waited for her to correct him again.

She didn’t, and he silently applauded her.
That’s it, my girl. Fight back. There’s only so much the Fallen can protect you from. Sooner or later you’re going to need to grow up and protect yourself.

She pushed away from the wall, carefully avoiding him. The loose white clothes matched what most of the others in Sheol wore, cult uniforms for the original cult, and it amused him. She moved past him, and she smelled like lilies of the valley. Of course she did—something sweet and innocent and untouched—and right then he decided that even if he ended up choosing someone else as his unwitting accomplice, he was still going to strip those baggy white clothes off Martha and fuck her the way she needed to be fucked.

Because he remembered Thomas. Thomas had been created an old man, gentle and unassuming. If that was all Martha had ever had in bed, she was in for a happy surprise. He wouldn’t leave without giving it to her.

He heard the rumble of anxious conversations the moment they reached the hallway, and he smiled to himself. The Fallen were in an uproar at his
unexpected return, as they should be. He fell back, letting Martha lead him into the large chamber that held a goodly portion of the Fallen and a select few of their wives, presumably including the new Source. Azazel was glaring at him, and Cain assessed the woman at his side. High-and-mighty Azazel had married the Lilith of ancient lore, part demon, part patron saint of womankind. She regarded Cain stonily, and he decided a demon would be a good match for a tight-ass like Azazel. He turned to face the new Alpha.

Raziel sat at the head of the massive table, as befitted the new leader, with a soft, pretty woman by his side. And then Cain froze, though he knew he gave nothing away.

The woman next to Raziel, presumably his wife and the Source for the current batch of mateless Fallen, was noticeably pregnant. Which was flat-out impossible.

He wondered whether she’d simply carried a healthy plumpness to an extreme. But that, while not as surprising, was just as unlikely. Once the Fallen brought their wives to Sheol, the women stayed relatively the same shape and size, aging very slowly. But no one,
no one,
could possibly be pregnant.

Again, this changed the situation. He needed the Fallen to believe in the impossible, to throw out their preconceptions. A pregnant Source was the first step.

Everyone else was the same, though many were missing. He let his eyes drift over each of them, enjoying their discomfort, and then Raziel distracted him. “I see you haven’t been informed of my wife’s pregnancy.”

Cain grinned easily, to annoy them and to keep any further reaction hidden. “May I offer congratulations to both of you? How many goats did you have to sacrifice to achieve such a miracle?”

“No goats,” the red-haired woman beside Azazel said. “And I don’t reveal trade secrets.”

“May I at least congratulate the demon Lilith on her ability to twist the laws of nature?”

Azazel stiffened, and Cain saw the sudden fire that lit the woman’s eyes at his gentle slam. Cain smiled with infinite sweetness, just waiting for Azazel to launch himself at him again, but the demon put a hand on his arm. Cain wanted to laugh. Azazel, restrained by a demon.

“I realize you’ve come here to cause trouble, Cain,” Raziel broke in before things could escalate, “but there’s nothing new in that. I presume you have another reason for gracing us with your presence after all this time? And where have you been?”

“Most recently? In Australia, clearing up the mess the rest of you left behind. The Nephilim are now gone from Down Under.”

“I am gratified to hear it,” Raziel said. “Did you
want a parade in your honor or will a simple thank-you suffice?”

“You always were a sarcastic son of a bitch,” Cain said pleasantly. “I want to come back.”

Raziel froze. In fact, the entire room went motionless, with the possible exception of the pregnant woman. Obviously no one had told her about the notorious Cain. “Impossible,” Raziel snapped. “Had it not been for your lies, Ezekiel would still be alive.”

Really, this was child’s play. “How can you say that, old friend? That was simply a misunderstanding, and I grieve for his loss as much as any of you. Sheol is for the Fallen, of whom I am clearly one. I might remind you that you didn’t kick me out—I left of my own accord after that tragic misunderstanding. Therefore I should be able to return whenever I wish to.”