Ruby Shadows (66 page)

“
I’ll be damned,” I murmured, stroking the glowing golden
lines on one shoulder with the tips of my fingers.

“
Ah!” she gasped and would have jumped away from me if I hadn’t
held her firmly by the waist. “Oh, please—
please don’t!
I don’t even know you!”

“
I
don’t know you either, sweetheart,” I pointed out roughly as I
pulled my hand away from the mesmerizing golden tattoos. “Didn’t
stop you from opening a door in my ceiling and diving down into my
bed. Where I come from some men would take that as an invitation to
touch a hell of a lot more than your shoulder.”

“
Are…are you going to despoil me, then?” she whispered in a
quivering voice, turning to face me again.

“
Despoil
you?”
I frowned at her. “You mean am I gonna
rape
you?”

“
Please don’t.” By the moonlight shining in through the
window, I could see silvery tear-tracks on her cheeks. She was
crying. Who the hell was this girl with the glowing, golden
tattoos? And more to the point, what she doing in my
bed?

“
Of course I’m not gonna rape you,” I said roughly, frowning
at her. “But you need to come up with some answers right quick,
sweetheart. Like who are you and how did you get here? How did you
get past my wards?”

“
I
didn’t know anything about any wards,” she protested. “Gwendolyn
sent me here. Druaga was after me so she did a spell of protection
and—”

“
Wait a minute—Gwendolyn?” I interrupted her. The name rang a
bell. I’d wanted to know about my competition after that debacle
down in Florida so I’d checked around to see who the witch on the
other side was. “Gwendolyn LaRoux?” I asked, looking at the
girl.

“
Yes—that’s her.” She nodded eagerly. “Do you know
her?”

“
I
know
of
her,” I muttered,
thinking of the strange dream I’d had of her. It had been a few
nights back and I was looking at her through some kind of mirror. I
hadn’t thought much of it at the time—the mess down in Florida had
been on my mind a lot and I chalked the weird dream up to that. Now
I wondered if it had a deeper meaning.

“
Gwendolyn’s wonderful,” the girl said. “I rode on her
shoulder through five of the seven circles of Hell.”

“
You did?” I looked at her doubtfully. Even in the dark room
it was easy to see she wasn’t exactly stick thin. Which was good—I
like a girl with some meat on her bones. But I didn’t see how she
could have ridden on the witch’s shoulder all the way through the
Underworld.

“
I
was in my moth form at the time, of course,” she said a little
impatiently.

“
Oh, excuse me—your
moth
form. Well why didn’t you just say so?” I said dryly. “So I
guess you’re some kind of a shape shifter?”

“
Of course not,” she said primly, smoothly back her long
platinum hair. “I’m an angel. Gwendolyn sent me here so you could
protect me.”

Well, you could’ve
knocked me over with a feather, as my Granddaddy would have
said.

“
Protect
you?”
I repeated stupidly. “How in the Hell am I supposed to do that? And
who am I protecting you from?”

“
Druaga. He’s a demon.” She shivered and a look of real fear
came over her delicate features. “He captured me in a spelled box
from the fields outside Heaven and dragged me down to Hell. He…he
wanted to…”

“
To despoil you?” I guessed, using her word, which sounded
nicer than “rape.”

She nodded, her eyes
wide. “But he couldn’t touch me—no one without purity and goodness
in his heart can touch an angel. He was working on a way though—a
way to get to me when I escaped. I changed into my moth form and
hid myself away on Gwendolyn’s shoulder. She carried me all through
Hell and didn’t know who I was.”

“
Why didn’t you tell her?” I asked, frowning.

“
Because, I got stuck in my moth form,” she explained. “I was
stuck in it so long I even lost my name. But Gwendolyn gave me a
new one—I’m Eryn.”

“
Jake,” I said, giving her my real name without even thinking
about it. “Nice to meet you.” I held out my hand.

She looked at my
hand uncertainly for a moment, then slipped her own cool little
palm into mine. I felt a little tingle run up my arm and Eryn
smiled and seemed to relax a little bit.

“
Ah, you are pure of heart, then,” she said,
smiling.

“
Pure of heart?” I snorted. “Darlin’, I’m a warlock which means
I’m not pure of
anything
. I’m
not exactly a nice guy.”

“
But you must have
some
goodness
in your heart—I can feel it,” she objected “At first I was worried
that you might have some dark magic that allowed you to touch
me—the kind of thing Druaga was working on. But when you took my
hand, I knew what you truly are.”

“
Look,” I said flatly, “If you’re trying to butter me up to
get me to protect you from this Druaga guy—”

“
Demon—he’s a demon,” she corrected me quickly. “And he’s
just
awful.”

“
Is this a problem all the time—demons capturing angels?” I
asked. “Was he looking to get you in particular or would any angel
do?”

“
I…I think he just wanted me,” she admitted, looking down at
her hands which were twisting in her lap. “Because, well…I’m
different
from the other angels.
The female ones, anyway.”

“
And how are you different, Darlin’?” I asked, frowning at
her. “Clue me in here—I’ve never seen a real live angel in the
flesh besides you.”

“
I’m different because I have…well, these.” She was pointing
to her full, ripe breasts and it was hard to tell in the dim light
of the room but I thought she might be blushing.

“
Because you have a, a-hem, a big chest?” I asked. I was
trying not to look but she’d practically invited me to so it was
hard to help it.

She nodded. “Most of
the other angels—the female angels—are flat and thin. I’m…well, I’m
not.” She sounded as though the fact made her sad or self-conscious
and I suddenly wondered if angels had body issues or teased each
other about looking different.

“
So this demon—this Druaga—just wanted you because you had big
breasts?” I asked bluntly.

“
I
have…other differences too.” She was very definitely blushing now.
“But I’d rather not go into them. Not now. It’s enough to let you
know that he captured me and dragged me down to Hell to despoil
me.”

“
Well, I admit that sounds bad,” I conceded, wondering what
the “other differences” might be. “But I still don’t see what it
has to do with me.”

Eryn shook her
head.

“
I
don’t either, Jake. I only know this is where Gwendolyn’s magic
sent me. She told me when she did the spell that she didn’t know
exactly what it would do but that it would protect me. I trust
her—if her magic sent me here, it must be for a reason.”

“
A
reason, huh?” I muttered thoughtfully.

I had a suddenly
idea—maybe the magic had sent me the angel to protect as a kind of
karmic payback for helping Celeste try to kill the little vampire
gal. It seemed like something that would happen with white magic.
Witches go by the rule of three—that is, whatever energy you put
out into the world, you get it back threefold. In which case, I was
going to be in serious trouble at some point, considering my
checkered past. Maybe this was the Goddess telling me I needed to
make amends—if she even wanted to talk to me that was. I’d been on
a dark path since the age of fourteen—could it be she still wanted
anything to do with me after almost twenty years of bad behavior
and black magic?

Suddenly, though
she’d been dead for over ten years, I heard my Nana’s voice speak
up inside my head.

“
You do it, Jake,”
she said in that no-nonsense tone that meant you’d better
listen up or get ready to take a switching.
“It’s a second chance for you—a way
to get right with the Goddess before it’s too late. If this pretty
little girl needs your help and protection, well then, you protect
her.”

“
Are you going to send me away?” Eryn’s soft voice broke my
train of thought. “If you are, could you at least try to send me
someplace Druaga can’t find me? I…I’m so frightened of him. He used
to tell me exactly what he wanted to do to me and it was so
awful…”

There were tears in
her big eyes again and I wished I knew what color they were—it was
hard to see in the moonlight.

“
Hey, now—hey,” I said, reaching out to swipe a tear off her
cheek with my thumb. She shied a little at my touch but relaxed
when she saw I was being gentle. “You can rest easy, Darlin’,” I
told her. “I’m not sending you anywhere. Well—except to another
room. You can’t sleep in here with me.”

“
Why not? Please don’t send me away!” She looked at me
pleadingly.

“
You’re still a stranger,” I said patiently—or as patiently as
I could, considering it was the middle of the night and I was dead
tired with a stray angle in my house. “Angel or not, I don’t know
you well enough to let you sleep in bed with me.”

“
But what if you put me in another room and Druaga finds me
and comes for me?” she whispered. “Will you be able to get to me in
time?”

“
He’s not going to get to you,” I promised. “My entire house
is covered in protective wards and no trespassing
spells.”

“
But Gwendolyn’s magic was able to get past all that or I
wouldn’t be here,” she pointed out.

Well, she had me
there.

“
Fine,” I said, sighing. “You can stay in here with me but
we’re not sleeping in the same bed.”

There were two
reasons for that. Number one, I’m wary of strangers—always have
been. She seemed soft and gentle but she’d come right out of the
ceiling—out of Hell if what she was saying was true. I wanted some
time to get to know her before I trusted her. And number two, the
little angel was just too tempting. I hadn’t been with a woman for
longer than I wanted to admit and I had no interest in tormenting
myself by sleeping beside such a soft, curvy beauty all night
wishing I could touch her and knowing I couldn’t.

“
All right,” she said in a small voice. “I’ll sleep on the
floor. I don’t mind.”

“
No, you won’t,” I said, frowning. “My Nana would skin me
alive if she knew I’d let a lady take the floor while I kept the
bed.”

“
Your Nana?” She frowned. “Who is she? Is she
here?”

“
She was my grandmother and she’s dead,” I said shortly. “But
she didn’t raise me to disrespect women—or angels either for that
matter. So you take the bed and I’ll take the chair.” I nodded at
the big old arm chair in the corner of my bedroom. It was a pretty
comfortable piece of furniture—I’d fallen asleep there many times
before when I was up late, pouring over grimoirs and spell books.
It wouldn’t be as good as the bed but I could manage there all
right.

“
Are you certain?” Eryn was nibbling her lush lower lip. “I
mean, I hate to ask you to leave your own bed.”

“
Believe me,” I said, eyeing the way the moonlight was shining
through her thin white gown and outlining her full, luscious
breasts. “It’s better this way.”

“
All right,” she whispered. “Thank you, Jake. And thank you
for saying you’ll protect me.”

“
Don’t thank me yet,” I said grimly. “I’m still not sure
exactly what we’re up against or what we’re going to do about
it.”

I grabbed my pillow
and pulled a quilt my Nana had made out of the cedar chest at the
foot of the bed. Then I went across to the armchair and started
making myself comfortable—well as comfortable as I could,
anyway.

I heard some
rustling in the bed and I saw that the angel had settled down and
was snuggling under the blankets. It seemed almost like she could
feel my eyes on her because she peeped over the edge of the covers
and looked at me for a moment.

“
Good night, Jake,” she whispered in the darkness. “And thank
you again.”

“
Welcome, Darlin’,” I said tiredly. “Just settle down and try
to get some sleep. If angels sleep, that is.”

“
Yes, we do,” she whispered. “As long as we feel
safe.”

“
You’re safe,” I told her. “Nothing’s getting to you unless it
goes through me first.”

“
Thank you for that. For being willing to protect
me.”

“
Hey, don’t thank me—thank Gwendolyn.” I shrugged. “It was her
magic that sent you here in the first place—even though I still
don’t really understand why.”

Eryn nodded and lay
her head back down on the pillow.

I tried to settle
down myself but my mind was a mess and my whole life was turned
upside down. I had no idea what I was going to do or how I was
going to protect the little angel who had literally landed in my
lap.

To
be continued
…

Author's Note: Cardinal Sins is coming
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the Kindred series, check out the first book,
Claimed
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