“You can’t touch me, not until it’s time. You can’t kill me, not until it’s time.” Her claws were coming out, and her teeth were sharp and ready. “You might want to hurt me—”
He took a step back. “I-I don’t …”
Bullshit. “Right. You expect me to believe you don’t want some payback after I took one of your precious angels away?”
She caught the flicker of his eyelashes. Ah … “I’m the one who took him. Me. Keenan fell.” She let her own smile curve and knew that it would reveal her fangs. “He fell for me, a vampire, a parasite, and he doesn’t want to go back with you.”
“You will destroy him.” Stark.
This was the guy who wasn’t supposed to feel? Maybe all the angels were boiling with emotions—and getting ready to explode. “Are you worried?” She asked him. “Because it seems like maybe you aren’t the perfect angel anymore, either—”
“I never was.”
That stopped her.
His wings were still spread wide. His hands were fisted at his sides. “Do you care for him, vampire?”
“Yes.” Absolute truth.
His head tilted. “How much?”
She stared back at him, her brows pulling low. What was he doing now?
“Do you care enough to trade your life?” A brief pause. “Because that’s what he did for you. He gave up everything he had. He burned as he fell. Keenan crawled through hell, just so he could come to you.”
Hell? Wait—
“So I ask … what would you do for him?”
She realized the shouting from downstairs had stopped. Too quiet. Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. She ran across the room and saw a big black bag near the nightstand. She yanked it open and found her clothes. All of her clothes had been brought over from Keenan’s place—Sam had known she’d be back. She yanked out the clothes—and she found her gun nestled inside. Thank you, Sam.
“Would you fight for him?” Az pressed. “Kill?”
“Yes.” Said without hesitation as her fingers curled around the base of a gun—the same gun she’d taken from that vamp feeding room in San Antonio. Got the silver this time, ass**le.
“Would you die for him?”
Anger boiled in her blood as she whirled back to him. “I don’t know what kind of sick game you think you’re playing—”
His gaze didn’t so much as drop to the gun. Right, ’cause why would he fear a gun? He wouldn’t … but Carlos should fear the silver bullets that were still inside.
Az watched her with his bright gaze. “We both know Carlos isn’t hunting you. It’s Keenan’s blood he wants because he needs an angel’s blood to get power. So I ask again …” His voice seemed to whisper through her, “Would you die for him?”
That silence was too thick. Her hand tightened on the gun. There were only a few bullets left.
“Angels can die,” Az told her, still in that whisper that sent chills over her. “Everyone can die, and believe me, vamp, you won’t both survive the night.”
Keenan?
She sprang for the door.
“Get ready to choose!” Az called after her. “I see death coming. I see it.”
The image of that last moment. Dammit, sometimes angels sucked.
“I see you and Keenan. I see the stake, and I see blood.” He shook his head. “The blood is on Keenan.”
No. He wasn’t supposed to die. She nearly tripped over the stairs as she raced down them. “Keenan!”
“Death will come.” Az’s voice followed her. “Before the sun comes, death will take a soul.”
“Stay away from him!” Nicole shouted, but she didn’t know if she was shouting the words to Az or to Carlos.
Then she hit the ground floor and she saw the broken glass that littered the floor. Two naked men—had to be shifters, they were always supposed to be naked when they transformed back to human form—lay on the floor.
But Keenan was gone, and there was no sign of Carlos.
“Better hurry …” She glanced up the stairs and saw Az staring down at her. “Time’s running out.”
Damn him. She ran out into the night, shouting Keenan’s name.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Keenan caught her when she raced outside. He yanked her close even as he put his hand over her mouth to stop her screams.
He pulled her back into the shadows and covered her with his body. “Easy, sweet,” he breathed the words against her ear and she sagged against him. “We’re being hunted.” And that knowledge had the fury ripping through his skin.