Five more steps, and she was at the edge of the woods. She saw the gleaming metal again, and realized someone had tried to use a green tarp to hide this prize. She grabbed that faded tarp and yanked. It flew away to reveal the heavy frame of a motorcycle.
Someone had left a backup plan behind. She started to smile.
A twig snapped behind her. Tensing, she glanced over her shoulder.
No Az. No other vengeful Death Angel coming at her, either. No—
“Going somewhere?” Az’s deep voice demanded.
She jumped and lost her breath. Then she yanked her gaze back around, following the sound of his voice. He was in front of the bike, head cocked, arms folded over his chest.
Her breath came back, only to be expelled in a fast rush. “I just . . . I thought I saw this”—she waved her hand toward the motorcycle—“last night. And while you were sleeping, I figured I’d check it out.” Her gaze held his and refused to drop, even when that too-intense stare searched hers.
“You’re lying to me.”
Okay, some shifters were supposed to be able to pick up on lies, maybe to even smell them, but did angels have some built-in lie detector, too? She didn’t think so.
“No, I’m not.” She’d bluff her way through this.
His smile held a cold edge. “After everything, were you going to just drive away and leave me?”
The darkness was even more intense in him today.
She reached for his hand. “No, I want us to both get the hell out of here.” Unhallowed ground. Translation—ground they needed to f**king get away from. It was working some kind of bad mojo on Az, and she wanted her hero back.
She sure didn’t want to deal with his bizarro dark side.
He glanced down at her hand. She followed his gaze. Her skin seemed so pale, while his was darker, golden.
“I dreamed about you.”
She swallowed. Okay, dreams were good, they were—
“You died in my arms.”
Dreams sucked. When his stare returned to her face, Jade tried to smile. “Good thing dreams don’t come true, huh?”
“For angels, they do.”
Her smile fell away.
“We see when our charges will take their last breath. We know of the moment that we must take them with our touch.” He was holding her hand and stroking his fingers over the back of her knuckles. “I’ve taken thousands of lives. Never hesitated even once. Not like Keenan.”
She had no idea who Keenan was. “Sorry, don’t think I know him.”
Faint lines appeared around his eyes. “Keenan was a powerful Death Angel. But when it came time for him to take his latest charge, he hesitated. He felt sympathy for the mortal, and he didn’t want to take her soul.”
Jade didn’t know what to say, but that was okay because Az wasn’t done talking.
He said, “Keenan lost his wings for her.”
That was kind of sweet. “So they survived? Got to live happily ever after?” Great, now she sounded like a fairy tale. Maybe even a perky greeting-card-wannabe girl.
The goose bumps on her arms were getting worse. A cold wind seemed to surround her.
“Because Keenan didn’t take her when he should have, his mortal was bitten by a vampire.”
Jade tensed.
“Now Nicole St. James has to spend an eternity feeding off others.”
So, not a happy ending.
“Keenan knew what he had to do,” Az continued, voice a deep growl. “I told him, but he wouldn’t give her up. He was ready to trade his life for hers.”
She didn’t like where this was going. “I don’t want anyone to trade for me.” She wouldn’t be taking on that burden, thank you very much. “So if an Angel of Death is coming, he’s coming for me. Not for anyone else.”
The blackness deepened in Az’s eyes. That was just creepy. Was her angel showing some demonic tendencies? He needed to stop. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered. “Please, Az, let’s just go.”
He leaned over her. Seemed to surround her. “You want me to stand back and let death take you?” Fury snapped through his words.
She didn’t back down. “I want you to get your ass on that motorcycle and get us the hell out of here.” Because she felt like Death was reaching out to grab her with his icy fingers right then.
It’s this place. We’ve got to leave.
Locking his hands around her arms, Az grabbed her and lifted her onto her tiptoes. “I know how Keenan felt,” Az muttered. “What I asked him to do . . . I know now.”