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He did not understand. Why here? Why now?
Why her?
Instantly the answer slid into place, and though he wanted to shy away from it as he had earlier, he couldn’t. She reminded him of Hadrenial. Not in demeanor—she was too full of fire—but in circumstance.
Hadrenial had died while tied to his bed.
Doesn’t matter. You must walk away. Emotions were nothing more than a waste. Zacharel had mourned his brother for centuries. He had wept and he had raged and he had sought death himself, but nothing he’d done had eased his guilt or his shame. Only when he’d cut himself off from all emotions had he experienced any relief.
And now…
Now, the frigid crystals weighing him down and dripping from his wings proved to be a blessing, reminding him of his status—commander—his duty—defending heavenly laws—and his goal—victory against the demons without any collateral damage. The girl could not, would not, matter.
“So predictable, Fitzpervert,” she taunted. “I knew you’d come for me.”
“As if I could stay away from my sweet little geisha. After all, we need to discuss your behavior today.” Lust glazed the man’s eyes as he perused her slender body, lingering over her very feminine curves.
Her gaze darted between the human and Zacharel. He knew she could no longer see him, that she was simply trying to reason out whether or not he was still there. And he knew the moment she decided that yes, he was still there, for quivers of humiliation overtook her.
“Why don’t we discuss your behavior instead?” A tinge of desperation belied her bravado. “You’re supposed to help your patients, not hurt them further.”
A lecherous grin met her words. “What we do together doesn’t have to hurt. If you make me feel good, I’ll make you feel very good.” He tossed the folder to the floor, removed his jacket. “I’ll prove it.”
“Don’t do this.” Her nostrils flared with the force of her breathing. “You’ll get caught, lose your job.”
“Darling, when are you going to learn? It’s your word against mine.” Withdrawing a syringe from his pant pocket, he walked forward. “I’m a highly respected medical professional. You’re a girl who sees monsters.”
“And I’m seeing one now!”
He chuckled. “I’ll change your mind.”
“I despise you,” she said, and Zacharel watched as she rallied her wits one more time. “Do you not realize this will come back to haunt you? If you plant seeds of destruction, you will have to live with the crop you grow, thorns and all.”
“How cute. A life lesson from one of the institution’s most violent inmates. But until my harvest comes in…”
She looked away from the human, from where Zacharel stood, and stared somewhere far away. Tears shone in those otherworldly eyes before she blinked them away. She would not break this eve; and really, this man would not break her for many months or even years. But she would hurt this eve. Badly.
CHAPTER THREE
THE MOMENT ZACHAREL FLEW out of the room, the fissure inside his chest elongated, and he would have sworn he heard ice cracking. Would a few words with the doctor truly be considered interfering? he wondered, slowing down. Afterward, he could return to his cloud, forget the female and continue on the way he had always continued on, alone, unaffected and unconcerned. The way he liked it. The way his Deity probably preferred it.
Very well. He was decided.
Zacharel returned to the room and materialized in front of the human male. A male who deserved to die for his crimes. But Zacharel would not be the one to harm him. He could only content himself with the knowledge that the doctor would one day reap a harvest of all the evil he had sown. Everyone always did.
Before the man could panic, Zacharel peered deeply into his eyes and said coldly, “You have something better to do.”
The doctor flinched and, snared by the ring of truth in Zacharel’s tone, replied, “Something better. Yes. I do.”
See? Zacharel wasn’t interfering as much as helping the doctor rediscover… whatever he considered better than harming one of his patients. “You will leave this room. You will not come back. You will not remember this night.”
A nod, and the man turned on his heel, rapped on the door.
Zacharel shielded himself inside a pocket of air as a surprised guard stepped into the room and looked the girl over. “All done, Dr. Fitzherbert? I thought you said you’d take a while.”
“Yes, I’m all done” was the monotone reply. “I will leave now. I have something better to do.”
“O-kay.”
Once again Zacharel found himself alone with the girl. He stepped from his shelter.
“I thought you weren’t going to save me,” she whispered, still looking somewhere outside the room. What did she see with those eyes?
Beautiful eyes, if he cared about that kind of thing—which he did not. “You asked if I had come to save you, and I had not. I came for another reason.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat, swallowed. “Well, thank you anyway. For sending him away, I mean.”
Huh. Zacharel liked hearing thank-you from her lips. As rusty as her tone had been, he suspected she had not uttered those words very often. Perhaps she simply hadn’t had reason to—and why was his chest aching again? “What would he have done to you?”
Silence.
“Hurt you, then.” That, Zacharel had already guessed. “Has he hurt you before?”
More silence.
“That’s a yes.” Killing humans wasn’t something Zacharel usually enjoyed, but it wasn’t something he detested, either. He would do anything to anyone and never experience a moment of remorse. However, ripping the doctor’s heart out of his chest might have given him a small thrill. “Correct?”
And even more silence.
I’m being purposely ignored. Never before had he been disregarded. Not even by his men! Feral as they were, even they listened to him—before blatantly disobeying him. And his former leader, Lysander, had taken his every word under advisement. What’s more, the only beings outside of his race that he counted as… what? Not friends, but not potential targets for elimination, either. The demon-possessed immortals known as the Lords of the Underworld had fought beside him and earned his respect for resisting the evil of their demons so forcefully. They had always watched him with rapt fascination. The few humans to see him throughout the centuries had been utterly mesmerized.
That this tiny fluff of nothing so easily dismissed him was baffling.
Before he could decide how best to handle this, Thane walked through the far wall. Fury crackled over his expression the moment he spotted the girl. He did not question Zacharel, however. A small blessing.
“The demons have been eliminated, Majesty, and the one you requested has been taken to your cloud. Alive.” His smoky voice contained the same treacherous crackles.
Slowly the female turned her head, hunks of that tangled hair falling over her forehead and shielding her eyes. She blew the strands away and studied Thane.
“I’m certainly popular tonight. Are you an angel, too?” she asked, her gaze stroking over the man’s still-black wings.
Zacharel noticed Thane did not elicit the doubt that he had. Why?
“Yes.” Thane sniffed the air, frowned and whipped his gaze to Zacharel. “You plan to free her?”
“No.” Why would he think that?
The frown deepened. “But why… Never mind. If you have changed your mind about her, I will take her with me.”
When they did not know why she was here or what she had done? “No,” he repeated.
Thane bowed, as though he were a slave humbled by his master. “Of course not, Majesty. How dare I entertain such a silly desire. No one in such a place as this deserves compassion, correct?”
Would his men ever simply obey him without question? “Were any humans harmed during the battle?” he asked. The girl was not the only one whose queries he would disregard.
Head held high, Thane replied through clenched teeth, “One of the guards. A sword of fire sliced through his middle.”
Zacharel found his hands tightening into fists for the second time that day. Direct disobedience—again. “A sword of fire does not slice through a human by accident.” While angels operated on the spiritual plane, not even their weapons could be sensed—or felt—by the humans. Therefore, the angel who’d done this deed had deliberately entered the mortal realm.
“The guard was demon possessed and needed to die,” Thane said.
“And yet he was still human. Who disobeyed my orders?”
Thane ran his tongue over his teeth. “Perhaps it was I.”
Familiar with the tricks that could be used to circumvent the ring of truth, Zacharel knew Thane was not the culprit. “Who? You will tell me or you will watch me penalize Bjorn and Xerxes.” Truth. He would do it without a single qualm.
Another pause, this one several beats longer. “Jamila.”
Jamila. One of four females in his army, but the one he had trusted most. She was the only one who had never challenged his authority. Yet now, because of her, he would receive another whipping.
“You,” the female on the bed said, her timbre shaded with irritation. “New guy. Angel Boy. Colonel Curls, or whatever you want to be called. I’m done asking, so now I’m commanding. Free me.”
Zacharel actually had to fight an urge not to smile. Him. Smile. The absurdity was staggering. But she’d just called his warrior by several insulting names, the same way that warrior often called Zacharel by insulting names.
Thane relaxed, a soft chuckle escaping him. “Colonel Curls. I like that. But, my beautiful human, you asked me to save you, not to free you.”
“Same thing,” she said, exasperated.
“They are quite different, I assure you. But what will you do if I fail to heed your command, hmm?”
She uttered a silky, “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
Zacharel pursed his lips, no longer amused. Was this flirting? This had better not be flirting. He and Thane were on a mission.
“Because knowing will not deter me?” Thane asked just as silkily.
“Because it’s so horrible even hearing it will make you puke.”
Thane coughed—or covered up a snort. It was too difficult to tell. “Did you hear that?” he asked Zacharel, speaking to him as if they were friends for the first time in their acquaintance, as if they were sharing a moment of understanding. “She just ordered me to obey her will, then threatened to hurt me if I failed to comply.”
“I have ears,” he replied drily. “I heard.” But why hadn’t she done the same to Zacharel?
“And she actually believes in her success,” Thane continued, bewildered.
“You do not have to sound so impressed,” Zacharel said, not liking the idea on any level. Impressed, Thane would desire the female… perhaps stop at nothing to have her.
Thane frowned at him. “I’m simply curious. And, very well, I will ask what is not my business. Why have you claimed her as your own if you plan to leave her here?”
“I have not claimed her.” Zacharel could not get the words out fast enough.
“Then why have you spread your essentia all over her?”
“I have not touched her.”
“And yet her skin bears your tinge.”
“Not mine.” Essentia, a substance that swirled inside each of their bodies, sometimes seeping through the pores of their hands to become a fine powder, allowing them to claim any object they considered their exclusive property. Demons produced a similar substance, only theirs was tainted.
Zacharel’s attention whipped to the female. “I have never claimed a human.” He’d never had so much as a yearning to do so. “She does not glow.” He saw nothing out of the ordinary about her skin.
She watched him unabashedly, and he nearly shifted on his feet. Him. Shifting. Inconceivable!
“I promise you,” Thane said, “the gleam is very dull but there, and it’s a definite warning to other males not to touch what belongs to you.”
Him? Impossible. “You are mistaken, that’s all.”
“Argh!” the girl interrupted. “I’m done listening to this meaningless jabber. Team Winger sucks! Just forget that I’m here. Oh, wait. You already have. So here’s an idea—leave.”
She had more mettle than even Zacharel had realized, and he was trying not to be impressed, or baffled, himself. “Go,” he said to his warrior. “I want you and my other advisors—” which included Jamila “—waiting in my cloud. No, strike that. Not you. Go and find every detail about this human that you can.” A need to learn more about her kept pricking at him. Better to heed it than to regret not doing it.
“Whatever you say, glorious leader.” Thane stalked from the room. Just before he vanished, he cast the girl one final glance, causing Zacharel’s hands to clench into fists. How many times would the action happen in a single day, when before he’d gone years without doing it once?
“If you want to know about me,” she snapped the moment she was alone with Zacharel, “you could have just asked me.”
“And give you the chance to lie?”
Hurt cascaded over her features, but only for a second. Pride took its place, and remained. “You’re right. I’m a no-good liar, and you’re Mr. Truth. So why are you here, Mr. Truth? I’m pretty clear on the fact that it’s not to save or free me.”
There was no reason not to tell her. “I was told to destroy the horde of demons trying to get inside the building.”
A beat of panic. “Horde, as in army?”
“Yes, but they are no longer any type of threat. My army was successful against them.”
Slowly she exhaled. “They wanted me, right?”
“Yes.”
Another beat of panic before she sagged against the bed. “But why me?”
She had no idea what had been done to her. None at all. Yet she would have remembered being tricked… or seduced. So how had the demon managed to mark her?
“Well?” she demanded.
Ignoring her, Zacharel claimed the folder still lying on the floor, the one the doctor had dropped, and riffled through the pages.
She banged her head against her pillow once, twice. “Fine. Pretend I’m not speaking. Whatever. I’m used to it. But please, glorious leader, allow me to save you the trouble of digging through the little details, since even a liar like me would have no need to fudge those.” Without pausing to allow him to respond, she added, “To start, my name is Annabelle Miller.”
