He finished strapping on the twin katana scabbards that crisscrossed his back. “We have a patrol that didn’t check in.”
“Ice’s?”
“Don’t start.”
She sighed, knowing how much time Char had invested in training the fledgling, but the kid couldn’t seem to follow orders.
Char glanced at her before securing a gun holster to his thigh. “I know you think he hasn’t demonstrated sufficient accountability.”
Swinging her legs off the side of the mattress, she said, “I don’t just think it. He’s
proven
it. Over and over again.”
“He wants to please you, Vashti. He’s ambitious. Ice
doesn’t leave his posts to play. He leaves because he thinks he can be more valuable elsewhere. If an opportunity to impress you presents itself, he’ll make the attempt. He’s probably tracking a rogue now or trying to eavesdrop on lycans.”
“I’d be impressed if he followed commands without insubordination.” Standing, Vash stretched, then sighed as her mate came to her and stroked his elegant hands down the sides of her torso. “And he’s pulling you out of our bed. Again.”
“
Neshama
, someone has to pull me from it. Otherwise, I would never leave it.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into the leather vest that hugged his lean chest. Breathing him in, she thought again that he was worth falling for. If she could relive making the choice between her wings and her love for Charron, she would have no doubts or hesitation about repeating her “mistake.” The curse of vampirism was a small price to pay to have him. “I’m coming with you.”
Tilting his head, he pressed his cheek to her crown. “Torque says no.”
“Not his call to make.” She pulled back, her eyes narrowed. Torque was Syre’s son, but she was the Fallen leader’s lieutenant. When it came to the Fallen and their minions—collectively, vampires—only Syre could gainsay her. Even Char had to take orders from her, which he did gracefully for a man who commanded others by nature.
“He has a demon problem.”
“Damn it. He should be able to take care of it.” Yes,
hunting the demons who preyed on vampires was her job. No one was better at it than she was, but she couldn’t be everywhere all the time.
“She’s another one of Asmodeus’s.”
“Of course she is. Damn it. Three times in two weeks? He’s fucking with us.” That changed things up. Taking down a demon in the direct line of a king of hell was a bit more politically involved. Vash had a reputation for being a wild card; she’d take the heat without casting as much of a shadow on Syre as his offspring would. And now she was pissed off enough to want to deal with it herself. They may have fallen, but they weren’t easy targets.
Char pressed a kiss to her forehead, then released her. “I’ll be back before dark.”
“Before dark…?” A quick glance at the bedroom window and she understood. “It’s dawn.”
“Yeah.” His face was as grim as she knew hers must be.
Ice wasn’t one of the Fallen, as she and Charron were. He was a mortal who’d been Changed, which meant he was photosensitive. Regardless of his overeager nature, he should’ve checked in before sunrise. Now he’d have to hunker down somewhere until dusk came or Char found him, whichever came first. A few sips of Char’s potent Fallen blood would afford a temporary immunity that would get the errant minion home.
“Have you considered,” she began, pulling back, “that it might be wise to let him stew it out? How will he learn, if he never faces the consequences?”
“Ice isn’t a child.”
Vash shot him a look that challenged that pronouncement. Ice might be nearly as broad and tall as her mate, but he lacked Char’s steely control, leaving him as impulsive as a kid. “I think you’re projecting traits onto him that he doesn’t have.”
“And I think it’s about time you trusted my judgment.” His returning gaze dared her to keep pushing.
It was a look no one else would even consider giving her, and not just because of her rank. While it goaded her obstinacy, she appreciated her mate’s willingness to confront her when he felt strongly about something. It was his ability to separate how he treated her as a superior officer and how he treated her as a woman that first stirred deeper feelings in her, during a time when the humanity she’d been sent to observe had begun to spread like a stain inside her.
She couldn’t pinpoint when her feelings for him had deepened. One day, Charron had been just another Watcher angel like her, one of the seraphim sent to earth to report on man’s progress to the Creator. The next, his smile had taken her breath away, and the sight of his powerfully graceful body had caused places low in her belly to clench. His gilded beauty—his gold-and-cream-colored wings, his tawny skin and hair, and his piercing, flame blue eyes—had morphed from being a mere testament to the skill of the Creator to being an irresistible lure to her newly awakened feminine hunger.
Hiding her new awareness of him had been torturous, but she’d done it for a time, embarrassed by her mortal weakness and unwilling to taint him with it.
When he’d succeeded in cornering her, then seducing her, he’d taken her with white-hot determination, and she had fallen from grace into his arms with full awareness of the consequences. She hadn’t shed a tear or made a sound when the avenging Sentinel angels had severed the wings from her back, turning her into the Fallen bloodsucker she was today. She had, however, begged and pleaded for mercy for Charron, and she’d cried the sobs of the heartbroken when they’d stripped him of his gorgeous wings, too.
His touch on her face brought her out of her memories, returning her to the present and the man whose eyes were now the gleaming amber of a soulless vampire. “Where do you go,” he asked softly, “when you drift away from me like that?”
Her mouth curved on one side. “I was telling myself how stupid it is to be irritated by your compassion and desire to mentor when I fell in love with you for those very traits. Among many others.”
Char fisted his hand in her long hair, bringing the crimson strands to his lips. “I remember you in flight, Vashti. When I close my eyes, I can still see you with the sun at your back, its light shining off your emerald feathers. You were a jewel to me, with your ruby hair and sapphire eyes. I ached whenever I saw you. The need to touch you, taste you, push inside you was a physical pain.”
“Poetry, my love?” she teased, although the levity in her tone was marred by the huskiness of deep emotion. He knew her so well. Read her thoughts so easily. He
was her other half, the best part of her. While she was temperamental and capricious, he was levelheaded and constant. When she was impatient and easily frustrated, he was reassuring and forward thinking.
“You are far more valuable and desirable to me now than you were then.” His forehead dropped lightly to hers. “Because now you’re mine. Totally and completely. As I am yours. With all my faults and traits that annoy you.”
Catching him with a hand at his nape, she took his mouth in a deep, lush kiss that curled her toes and quickened her breathing.
“I love you.” The words were spoken against his lips, her hands clutching him with the strength of all the joy inside her. It was too much sometimes, overflowing and clogging her throat with tears of gratitude. She was embarrassed by the strength of her feelings for her mate. He was in her thoughts at nearly every waking moment and many of her sleeping ones as well.
“I love you, my dearest Vashti.” He crushed her naked body to him. “I know you’ve given me considerable leeway with Ice, against your better judgment. I think it’s time I repaid you by listening to your counsel and reining him back.”
She adored that about him, too, his sense of fairness and ability to bend when appropriate. “You deal with him, I’ll deal with Torque’s problem, and tonight we’ll drop off the map for a couple days. We’ve both been working hard lately. We’ve earned a break.”
Wrapping his hand gently around her throat, he
smiled. Eyes bright with sensual promise and affection, he murmured, “With an incentive like that, I’ll make damn sure I’m home early.”
“We’ll see how cooperative Ice is with that. He might have his ass hidden in the most out-of-the-fucking-way place imaginable.”
He arched a chastising brow for her ribbing, but vowed, “Nothing could keep me away.”
“Better not.” She turned away and wiggled her ass at him. “Neither of you wants me hunting you down…”
By noon, Vashti was sashaying into Syre’s office with a memento from her latest hunt in hand. The vampire leader wasn’t alone, but she felt no hesitation in interrupting. The woman with him was one of countless human females who’d caught Syre’s eye and lost it just as quickly. It didn’t matter if they were forewarned or not; they never believed he was completely unattainable until they experienced his dismissal firsthand. He was a passionate man, but physical enthusiasm was no sign of deeper interest. Syre had lost his wings for love, then he’d lost the woman he had given them up for.
“Syre.”
He glanced at her with the heavy-lidded gaze that drove women crazy. He stood with arms crossed and his hip canted into the short built-in bookcase behind his desk. Dressed in black tailored slacks and black silk tie paired with a crisp white dress shirt, he was both elegant and devastatingly attractive. His inky dark hair and warm, caramel-hued skin made him exotic in a
way that was impossible to classify. Eastern European, some guessed. Syre had been favored once, much loved by the Creator. It was why, she believed, their fall had been punished so harshly—he’d had a very lofty perch to tumble from.
“Vashti,” he greeted, his voice as throaty and warm as whiskey. “Things go well?”
“Of course.”
The blonde who’d been overstaying her welcome shot daggers at Vash, as most of his lovers did. They mistook the connection between her and her superior officer as something far more than it was. Their relationship was personal and priceless, but it wasn’t intimate or romantic. Vash would give her life for Syre’s in an instant, but the love she bore him sprang only from respect, loyalty, and the knowledge that he would die as readily for her.
She gave the woman a sympathetic smile, but spoke bluntly, as was her way. “Don’t call him; he’ll call you.”
“Vashti,” Syre admonished in a warning tone. He was too much of a gentleman to make the clean breaks that would spare him a lot of messy confrontations.
She didn’t have such qualms. “He wanted you, he had you, and you had a good time. There’s nothing else beyond that.”
“What are you?” the lovely blonde shot back. “His pimp?”
“No. That would make you a whore.”
“Enough, Vashti.” Syre’s voice cracked like a whip.
“You’re so jealous,” the blonde hissed, her perfect features contorting from her frustration and hurt. Her
emotional spillage contrasted sharply with her pristine, perfect exterior. Her sleek chignon, fashionable pillbox hat, and tidy feminine suit were so cool compared to her heated response. “You can’t stand that he’s with me.”
Sadly, the woman couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Vash would give up everything but Charron to see her commander happy again. If it would have made a difference to do so, she would have pointed out what a striking couple they made—the regal blonde and the debonair dark prince. But the heart Syre’s mortal wife had awakened in him had died along with her.
“I’m trying to save you from weeks of humiliating yourself,” Vash said as kindly as possible.
“Fuck you.”
“Diane,” Syre said firmly, straightening and moving to catch her by the elbow. “I’m sorry to have to end our pleasurable association so abruptly, but I can’t allow anyone to speak to Vashti in that manner.”
Diane’s cornflower blue eyes widened and her painted mouth formed an astonished O. She stumbled along beside him as he led her out of the room. “But you allow her to talk to me the way she did? How can you?”
When Syre returned, alone, his handsome features were grim. “You’re in a mood today,” he said curtly.
“I just saved you from a week or more of begging and pleading. You’re welcome. And you need a mistress.”
“My sexual proclivities are none of your concern.”
“Your mental well-being is,” she shot back. “Find someone whose company you enjoy and keep her around. Let her look after you a bit.”
“I don’t need the complication.”
“It doesn’t have to be complicated.” She dropped into one of the seats in front of his desk, her hands smoothing her sleek khaki pants. “I’m talking about a business arrangement. I don’t understand it myself, but there are some women who can have sex just because it’s fun. Set one up in a nice place and give her an allowance.”
Syre shook his head. “You
are
becoming my pimp.”
“Maybe you need one.”
“I’m insulted by even the concept of fucking a woman who feels obligated to comply.”
Her brow arched. “There isn’t a woman alive who would find it a chore.” Even she, a woman who was happily mated to the love of her life, wasn’t immune to Syre’s sexual appeal. He was the kind of man that hit a woman right between the eyes every time she saw him. Sensuous, seductive, hypnotic.
“You will cease talking about this.”
“No, I won’t. You need someone to care about you, Samyaza.”
The use of his angelic name thrust home her seriousness. His gaze sharpened and narrowed as he sank into his chair behind the desk. “No.”
“I didn’t say
love
you.
Care
about you. Someone to make you coffee in the morning, just the way you like it. Someone to watch a rerun on television with you. You know, just someone who’s around who knows you and wants good things for you.”
Leaning back, he set his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingertips together. “I’ve been asked to
explain you at times. Explain what you are to me. I haven’t come up with the right answer yet. You are my second, but you’re not merely a subordinate officer to me. We’re more than friends, yet I don’t view you as a sister. I love you, but I’m not in love with you. I am aware of your beauty as any man would be, yet I’m not interested in sleeping with you. You are the most important woman in my life and I’d be utterly lost without you, but I would never want to cohabitate with you. What are you to me, Vashti? What gives you the right to discuss such personal matters with me?”