The Angel of Death (The Soul Summoner Book 3) (25 page)

Azrael shook his head. “Nathan wasn’t there when I told you your power was limited. That happened when we left your doctor’s office.”

“Oh, that’s true,” I said. I rubbed my hands over my face. “I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore.”

He leaned toward me. “Sloan, it’s all real. Do you not realize that?”

My chin quivered.

“What else happened?”

I swallowed hard. “Um…I went to my room and cried. Nathan heard me and came in to comfort me. We started to…um…”

Nathan turned his back to us, his hands folded on top off his head.

“Did you have sex?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “Before that happened, he tried to kill me.”

Azrael tilted my chin up. “He choked you?”

I nodded.

“I swear, I was asleep in my room the whole time. I woke up to her screaming and ran across the hall,” Nathan said. “The door was even locked. Taiya had to open it.”

Azrael silenced him with his hand again. “Sloan, how did you stop it?”

I covered my face as the tears spilled out. “I used my power. There was a huge explosion, and I killed him.”

Azrael’s mouth fell open a fraction of an inch.

Nathan walked around to face him and pulled up his shirt, displaying the marks on his torso. “Azrael, what does this mean?”

The Angel of Death straightened and looked at him. “It means, Detective McNamara, you are
very
lucky to be alive.”

* * *

I’m pretty sure Azrael used his magic to put me back to sleep for several hours, and when I woke up again, it was daylight and Nathan was gone. Azrael and Taiya were talking quietly at the table in the kitchen when I came downstairs. “Good morning,” I said to both of them.

“Good afternoon,” Azrael corrected me. “Do you feel better?”

“No.”

“How is your throat?”

“It’s better,” I said. “Did Nathan go to work?”

“Several hours ago.” He pushed the chair out across from him with his foot. “Sit down. We have things to discuss.”

“Azrael, I’m too tired for deep conversation this morning.”

“I don’t care.”

After retrieving a water from the refrigerator, I sat in the chair. He reached around to my prenatals on the counter behind him. He slid the bottle toward me. I dropped one in my mouth, washed it down with a gulp of water, and slid the bottle back to him. “All right, what do you want to discuss?”

“You’re not safe like this,” he said with zero emotion.

I tapped my finger on the table. “I’m fine as long as you’re here and you weren’t here last night. Where were you, anyway?”

He leaned his elbows on the table. “You know where I was. I was looking for Ysha and Phenex.”

“Were you?” I asked. “Or were you fooling around with my best friend?”

His face slipped into a scowl. “I was
exactly
where I said I was. My involvement with Adrianne was
your
doing. Don’t forget that.”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “I’m sorry. I’m tired and completely freaked out today.”

“Which is why we must change our situation here. You’re not safe. Humans are too vulnerable,” he said. “And that puts you and my granddaughter in danger.”

“I’m not leaving Nathan,” I said.

He folded his arms over his chest. “How long do you think you can keep this up with him, Sloan? Will you be able to leave Nathan when Warren comes home? How about when your child is born? Where will you draw the line?”

“It’s not that easy,” I said.

“Let me make it easy.” He slammed his index finger onto the table. “This child holds the fate of humanity, and compared to that, your
feelings
are worthless. This is your destiny.”

I smirked. “You sound like my demon mother right now.”

“Perhaps I do, but that doesn’t make me wrong,” he said. “And if you’re so in love with him, do you not even care you could’ve taken his life last night?”

“Of course I care!” I screamed. “I’ve already lost him once. I don’t want it to happen again.”

Azrael leaned back. “Lost him when?”

“Kasyade killed him in Texas,” I said. “I brought him back.”

He sat back in his chair, dropping his hands into his lap. “That explains a lot.”

I pushed back from the table in frustration. “Well, explain it to me.”

“You cannot kill what you’ve already saved and vice versa,” he said. “If you used your power to heal him—”

“I used my power to bring him back from the dead,” I said.

“If you used your power
at all,
you can’t harm him.”

I stood. “Great. It’s settled then.” I put a hand on the table and leaned over it. “He’s staying.”

“No, I’m not.” Nathan’s voice came from behind me, but I hadn’t even heard him come in.

I spun around toward him.

He looked around me to Azrael. “Can I talk to Sloan alone?”

Azrael said something to Taiya in Katavukai, then I heard their chairs move. A second later they both walked past me toward the door. “We’ll be outside,” Azrael said.

When they were gone, Nathan gestured toward the loveseat. “Can we sit?”

I followed him across the room and sat down beside him. “Nathan, I don’t know—”

“Let me talk first,” he said, interrupting me.

I bit down on the insides of my lips and relaxed back in my seat.

He gathered my hands in his and looked down at them for a long while before he finally spoke. “I need you to allow me to take a step back from this.”

“Did Azrael put you up to this?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Azrael has nothing to do with it. This isn’t about what physical danger you or I might be in. This is about me not being able to stop my mind from replaying being in your bed last night.”

I was surprised. “You remember it?”

“It’s jumbled and doesn’t make much sense, but yeah.” He let out a deep sigh. “It doesn’t matter if I was in control of myself or not; what matters is I don’t want to be in control anymore. I want all of you, and it’s too damn hard being this close and not being able to have you.”

He gripped my hands tighter, still not meeting my eyes. “I’ve been an asshole, and I’ve passed the responsibility of what happens with us completely to you. I’ve stayed right here because I told myself I was doing it to protect you and that I was doing it because Warren asked me to. And while those things are true, they’re also bullshit. I did it for me because I can’t stand being away from you.”

We were both quiet as I let his words sink in. He was doing it. He was really saying goodbye.
 

“I do love you, Nathan.” My voice was barely a whisper.

When he finally looked up, his gray eyes were glassy. “I know you do, and somewhere in another lifetime, I’m sure we have an awesome life together.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s just not in this one.”

“Where will you go?” I asked softly.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe back to Raleigh.”
 

I looked down and tears splashed in speckled shapes onto my pants.

Nathan put his hand under my chin and lifted my face to meet my eyes. “I need you to be OK though, and I need you to be happy.”

“How can I be happy?”

His smile was gentle. “It’ll come. Warren will be home soon, your daughter will be born, and you’ll have a good life with them.”

“What about you?”

He winked at me. “I’ve always got bad guys, booze, and college basketball.”

I laughed and wiped my eyes.

“Look at me, Sloan,” he said.

Nathan studied my face carefully for a moment, like he knew it was the last time he’d see it. Then without hesitation or apology, he slid his hands up my jaw and pulled my lips to meet his.

The kiss was long and slow. Deep and memorable…because that’s exactly what we both knew it would become.
 

A very distant memory.

19.

Nathan took all his stuff back to his apartment without even a final goodbye before he left. No matter how many times Azrael said the words ‘
he did the right thing,’
nothing made Nathan’s departure any easier. By lunchtime the next day, I still hadn’t gotten out of bed.

“Knock, knock,” Adrianne said, announcing her presence as she pushed open my door.
 

I looked around the pillow I was hugging. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m on my lunch break. Your dad called me. He’s really worried about you,” she said, sitting down next to me.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled.

She frowned. “I’m looking at your hair. You are
not
fine.”

“You’re right,” I said, rolling over to look at her. “I’m not. I’m a horrible person, destined for hell or equally bad things.”

“I can’t argue with you there,” she said, grinning at me.

I threw the pillow at her.

“Get in the shower, you nasty skank,” she said. “And get your ass out of bed. Geez, this isn’t a moody teen melodrama. You need real food and real human interaction…or at least non-human interaction. Just get up.”

I snuggled further under my blankets. “I’m so tired.”

With an exasperated huff, Adrianne yanked back my comforter. “Get up!” She stood and pointed at me. “Don’t make me push a pregnant lady on the floor.”

Obediently, I sat up in the bed.

She aimed her finger at the master bath. “Shower.
Now
.”

Twenty minutes later, I came downstairs, showered and dressed for the first time since we’d all gone Christmas shopping. Adrianne was sitting next to Azrael on the couch, a little closer to him than I was comfortable with. Taiya was sitting on the floor with a coloring book. She clapped when she saw me.

Adrianne and Azrael looked up.

“Back from the dead,” Adrianne announced.

Azrael looked at her. “You’re a miracle worker.”

“Stop being dramatic,” I said. “It’s only been a day.”

Adrianne put her hand on Azrael’s arm. “You have no idea the miracles I can work.”

I wanted to throw up. “Move over,” I said, pushing them apart and dropping down in the seat between them.

“Are you hungry?” Azrael motioned to the box of pizza on the coffee table. “It’s extra meat and extra cheese.”

“Azrael, you eat like you’re preparing for a reality show intervention someday, but you never work out. How is it you’re built like a tank?” I asked.

Adrianne made a soft purring noise beside me.

I rolled my eyes.

“The cells in this body are programmed to work at maximum efficiency all the time,” he said. “Outside factors have no influence on them.”

“I hate you,” I said, leaning toward the pizza box.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “No. I’m sorry. You have to work for your dinner.”

I was confused. “What?”

“If you want pizza, you can’t use your hands.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He let go of my arm. “You can use your hands to eat it, but not to get it.”

“Azrael,” I whined.

“Close your eyes,” he instructed.

With a huff, I pressed my eyes closed.
 

“Think about what you want to happen. Visualize it. Use the space around you to move the pizza onto the plate and not your lap,” he said.

Adrianne burst out in nervous laughter beside me. “What kind of voodoo shit is this?”

I cracked up, and my eyes popped open.
 

She leaned over, dropped a slice of pizza onto a plate and handed it to me. “Problem solved,” she said.

Frustrated, Azrael sighed and shook his head.

“I have to get back to work before you two circus monkeys get any weirder.” Adrianne stood, then leaned down to look at me. “Will you be OK?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for dragging me out of bed.”

She pointed at me. “No more sulking.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I love you, freak.”

“I love you too.”

She tousled Taiya’s hair. “Goodbye, beautiful.”

Taiya waved at her, smiling from ear to ear.

Azrael walked her to the door.

“So…will I see you on Friday?” she asked, running a finger under the collar of the jacket he was wearing.

I groaned.

“I’ll let you know,” he said, opening the front door.

She held her pinky and her thumb in the shape of a phone up to the side of her face. “Call me.”

When she was gone, he brought me a bottle of water from the kitchen before reclaiming his spot on the sofa. “Here,” he said.

“Thanks.” I pointed the bottle at him. “What’s happening on Friday?”

He cleared his throat. “She said we’re all going to some fancy dinner thing.”

I groaned. “I forgot about that. We’re having dinner at the Deerpark restaurant.”

“I don’t know what that is,” he said.

“It’s probably the most romantic restaurant in all of North Carolina.” I sighed. “Just the perfect place for me to have my debut starring role as a third wheel.” I pointed at Taiya. “What about her?”

“She’ll have to go with us, I guess,” he answered.

“Is that a good idea? Taking her out in public?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Taiya’s not exactly a wanted criminal. Besides, I doubt anyone would even recognize her now.”

That was the truth. Between her haircut, her new clothes, and the five pounds she’d packed on in the week she’d been at my house, Taiya looked like a completely different person.

“Adrianne really worked some magic on her, didn’t she?” he asked.

The melodic notes of his tone caught my attention. I looked over at him. “What’s going on with you and my best friend?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“She’s nice,” he said. “And she’s tall. I like that.”

I took a long drink of water. “She’s off limits.”

He turned toward me. “How come?”

“Because you’re a dead guy!”

His brow crumpled. “I am most certainly
not
a dead guy.”

“You’re not a human,” I said.

“That’s correct.” He winked at me. “I’m better.”

I picked up my slice of pizza again. “You can’t give her a future, and she deserves one. I don’t want her to wind up with a broken heart.”

“I have no intention of breaking anything,” he said, putting his feet up on the coffee table.