To Kill An Angel (28 page)

Bo stepped toward me, looking pointedly at Cade.

“Could you give us a minute?”

Cade, still dazed from my bite, nodded absently and made his way to the door.  His steps were slow and lethargic.  For a second, I almost laughed.  I could remember with perfect clarity what that felt like.

When Cade had exited and closed the door firmly behind him, Bo turned back to me and spoke.

“I know we’ve already talked about this, but I just want to remind you that we don’t have to do this,” he reiterated.  “We can just run away.  We could be together, both of us vampires, and live forever.  None of these people would get hurt then.”

“You can’t know that.”

“There would be no reason.  If I’m not around, there’s no reason for him to hurt them.”

“So, what?  We’d live forever looking over our shoulders?”

Bo sighed in frustration.

“It wouldn’t be like—”

“Yes, it would and you know it.  Besides, Sebastian has to be killed.  It’s what you were born to do, Bo.  You can’t just ignore something like that just because it’s inconvenient.”

“I know that, but I can’t stand the thought of bringing all this into your life and then leaving you to live for eternity with it, alone.  Without me.”

That thought used to bother me as well, but now I had information that he did not.  It was pretty clear to me that, in order that Bo would live and Sebastian would die, I would likely not see Christmas.  Heck, I might not even see Monday for all I knew.

“Bo, I have every confidence that I won’t be watching you die.”  And I meant that, just probably not in the way that Bo thought I did.

“Well, if you’re determined to go through with this then Savannah could be a big help.”

“I know, but…”

“Devon can watch out for her.  I have a feeling he’d rather die himself than let anything happen to her.”

I had to smile.

“I think you’re probably right.”

“Look, I know you’re worried about it.  Let’s just tell them what’s going on and let them decide, okay?  Savannah’s a big girl.”

With that, Bo wiped some blood from my bottom lip, gave me a quick kiss and then led me to the door.

Back outside the study, it seemed that Savannah and Devon were getting along beautifully with Annika, much to my chagrin.  When Bo and I appeared in the hall at the living room, I couldn’t help but notice that Annika’s eyes went straight to Bo and stayed there.

“What did you find out?” she asked.

Bo explained about my vision of Lilly, where they were keeping her, and that we suspected it might be a trap.  He also explained the possibility that both Sebastian and Heather might be abstaining from blood in order to remain visually undetectable.  Without having to go any further, Savannah spoke up.

“I can help with that,” she asserted.  “If you guys can’t see them, it means that I can, right?”

Bo and I glanced at one another.

“Yes, technically, but—”

“No buts.  If I can help, I want to.”

“No,” Devon stated definitively.  “It’s too dangerous.”

Savannah looked to her left, toward what looked like the empty space beside her, and arched one brow.  If you didn’t look really closely and the light didn’t hit him just right, Devon was completely imperceptible.

“Just because it’s dangerous doesn’t mean that I won’t help my friends.  If you want to sit this one out, be my guest.”

“Savannah—”

“I’m going,” she declared stubbornly.

Plainly, I heard Devon’s breath hiss through his teeth in frustration.  He said nothing for several seconds, but then agreed, albeit grudgingly.

“Like I’d let them go take this a-hole out without me.  Besides, they’ll need me to help keep you in line,” he teased.

“Think you’re man enough for that job?” she returned, her grin taking on a hint of intimacy that made me feel a little like I was watching them through a bedroom window.

“Alright, you two.  Seriously, if you’re gonna keep this up, you
have to get a room!”

Everyone laughed, but beneath the placid surface of the jovial moment, a current of dread, uncertainty and a healthy stream of fear flowed.

“What did you learn from the letter this time, Bo?” Cade asked when the laughter had died down.

“I haven’t looked yet,” he admitted stiffly.

“Don’t you think you’d better do that before we go any further with making plans?”

“I wanted to let you all know what we found out before we excused ourselves to look for more writing.  We might be a while,” Bo said, injecting as much venom and innuendo as he could into his statement.  I knew then that he was aware of Cade’s attraction to me and he was very subtly reminding him that we were together, that I was taken.

A look of satisfaction settled over Bo’s face when Cade’s expression grew dark.  He knew he’d struck a nerve, which was his intention.  I had the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes.

Bo brought my hand, which he still held firmly in his grasp, to his lips.

“Shall we?”

I nodded and let Bo lead me back to the bedroom.  When we were both inside, I walked across the room while he closed the door.  When he turned to me, I was already shedding my clothes.  We’d been through this before.

Bo smiled and leaned back against the door, crossing his arms over his wide chest.  With every piece of clothing I removed, his eyes bathed my skin in a warmth that traveled all the way to my core and simmered there like hot liquid.  No one had ever made me feel so sexy.

When I stood before him in nothing more than my bra and panties, Bo uncrossed his arms and walked slowly toward me, his eyes never leaving mine.  He stopped within inches of me and raised a hand to brush the hair away from my face. 

His eyes scanned the contours of my brow, making their way down over my temple to my cheek.  The soft appreciative light in his eyes turned stone cold and he reached up to take my chin in his hands, turning my face this way and that in the low light.

“What is it?” I said, understandably worried.

Bo said nothing.  He simply examined my face thoroughly and then looked over the entire front of my body until he found the newest writings.  He stopped to study the skin of my thighs and as he moved, the light behind him glimmered over the iridescent markings there.

I said nothing else until Bo had studied the markings and checked my back for more.  I didn’t ask what he’d found until he came back around in front of me and stopped.

“What?  What does it say?”

“We were right.  Sebastian needs the blood of all those people, the ones on this list, in order to kill me.  He must draw their blood with a single point from his wings, a single feather.”

“A feather?”

“Yeah.”

“And then do what?”

“Pierce my heart with it.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Bo’s face swam in front of my eyes for a moment as I thought back to my vision, to the strange stakes that Bo and Sebastian used to stab each other.  Bo’s was white and Sebastian’s was black, which was, according to Savannah, just like their wings. 

It’s real,
I thought
.  It’s all real and it’s actually going to happen.

I opened and closed my eyes several times to clear Bo’s blurry image.

“So what you’re saying is that his wings are deadly?”

“So it would seem.”

“Then yours must be, too.  I mean, you
are
an angel after all.”

“That might be the case if I could actually see them or feel them.”  Bo patted his back and snatched at the air behind him like he was grabbing for an imaginary arrow from an imaginary quiver.  “See?  Nothing.”

I frowned.  That couldn’t be right.

“Maybe they’re just not completely developed yet.  That night upstairs, when Sebastian showed me his wings, they weren’t really
real. 
They were more like a shadow or something.  Maybe they’ll get more pronounced as you get closer to figuring out how to stop him.”

Bo shrugged.

“If they’re some sort of weapon then I would hope so.  The one thing we know for sure is that we need to get Lilly, right?”

I nodded.

“Well then, let’s start there and see how the puzzle pieces fit together afterward.”

Again, I nodded.  A look of concern settled over Bo’s face as he watched me.  I wasn’t even going to attempt a smile to ease his mind.  I knew my failure to produce a convincing one would only serve to further alert him to my turmoil.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I managed.  I had to work to steady my hand as I reached for my discarded clothes.  I couldn’t let Bo know that something was wrong.  He’d dig it out of me one way or the other and then all would be lost.  He would never let me go through with it.  He’d die first and I couldn’t let that happen.

“I guess we’d better go get some kind of plan worked out with the others, right?”

“We’ve got time,” Bo assured me as I slipped my shirt over my head.

I avoided his eyes as I stepped into my jeans.

“Yeah, but there’s no sense waiting until the last minute, right?”

I had to get Bo back out in front of the others so that his focus wouldn’t be concentrated on me.  I’d fold like a house of cards if he pressed me very hard.  Bo was not only nearly impossible for me to resist, but I had a very difficult time misleading him.  I knew the best thing I could do was to keep his attention divided between me and something or someone else.

“Besides, much as I’d like to spend the entire day in here with you all to myself, I can’t ignore Savannah,” I said, pressing a quick kiss to his lips.  Taking his hand, I pulled him toward the door.  “Come on, my angel.”

Bo smiled, as did I.  Genuinely.  He was my angel in many different ways.  Now I could say that he was literally my angel.

Back out with the others, Bo and I filled them in on the rough details and we set about formulating a plan for nightfall.  When we were all in agreement, everyone clear on their role, we fell into easy, inconsequential conversation and wiled the day away with friendly chat and surprisingly natural laughter, all things considered.

One thing I was learning was that, as a vampire, time had a totally different feel and meaning.  It seemed that only an hour or so had passed when I looked up and saw the fiery sun making its final appearance on the horizon.  It bid us all goodnight with one final kiss of red and gold.  It burned through the wall of windows in the living room like a sky-wide fire.

I was watching nature’s gorgeous display when Savannah’s voice broke into my musing.

“I know you all don’t need to eat, but what about us humans?”

Cade, who’d come back to join us after his nap, chimed in.

“I could use something, too.  I’m starving.”

“I guess we should feed before we go, too, just for added strength,” Annika proposed, directing her comment to Bo.