“What do you want me to say?”
She ran both hands through her hair and growled. “Something that makes sense. Something sincere and believable.”
“I’m sorry, angel.”
Pausing midstep, Eve gaped at him. “That’s it? You’re
sorry
?”
“Would it be better to say that I would do it again?”
She looked away. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Look at me like that.”
“You love me.” Alec smiled wryly.
They stared at each other across the few feet that separated them.
“Hate to burst your bubble,” she said grimly, “but I have more important things in my life than you. You’re expendable.”
“Actually, I’m not, but we’ll get to that later. In the meantime, you can’t ignore what happened last night.”
“It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” She walked past him to the kitchen.
He followed. “It means we’re in a lot of shit. It also means getting you out of this mess just got a hell of a lot more complicated.”
She grabbed two mugs from her cabinet and changed the subject. “You want to explain the winged man?”
“Yes,
brother,
would you like to explain me?”
Eve turned at the sound of the voice she would never forget. He strode in from the balcony as if he owned the place. The man who’d screwed her into unconsciousness in the stairwell. His smile was sensual and slightly cruel, and it made her shiver, not entirely with fear.
Alec snarled and vaulted across the room with a ferocity and speed that frightened her, hitting his brother in the midsection with a brutal tackle. The ensuing scuffle was far from brotherly tussling. It was a fight to the death, and the sounds and sights of the battle did something strange to her. Made her mark burn, made her pulse race. The scent of blood in the air caused a physical reaction that she likened to blood lust. A rough growl rumbled up from her chest.
Alec lifted his brother into the air like a WWE wrestler and smashed him onto her glass-topped coffee table, destroying it. A moment later, he finished off the job by braining his brother with her Waterford crystal candy bowl.
The sickening crunch of a crushing skull should have horrified her, should have made her vomit, and she was in fact stumbling toward her sink to do just that when Alec disappeared.
Vanished into thin air.
One moment he was pushing to his feet, his bare body sheened with sweat and high-velocity blood spatter. The next he was gone.
Eve paused, unblinking, her body’s natural response seized by shock. Her gaze dropped to the dead man on the floor.
Then she spun to the sink and wanted to retch, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
“Oh my god,” she gasped, hanging on to the curved granite edge to remain standing. As her mark sizzled within her skin, a sharp sound escaped from her throat.
“Yeah, that’s where he went,” came a dry voice from the living room. The corpse on the floor rose to its feet, its disfigured head restoring before her very eyes, the dent slowly filling like a balloon. Wings sprouted from the man’s back and he shook them out, testing each side with a quick flap before retracting them.
“Cain never learns,” he said, winking at her, once again looking like the Armani-clad businessman from Gadara Tower.
“I’m insane,” she gasped. “Certifiable.”
Alec’s brother laughed. “Don’t get your pan ties in a twist, babe. He’ll be back, and in one piece, too.”
“You’re dead,” Eve muttered, “and I’m going to pass out.”
“You’re too healthy for that. All the physical reactions you used to have to stress won’t happen anymore.”
“
What
the hell are you?”
He smiled, the arrogant curve of his lips a faint echo of Alec’s.
Brothers.
She could see it now. All the hints of Alec that had drawn her to him the other day
were
Alec. His blood. His genes. His traits. But all the warmth and love that shone in Alec’s dark eyes were absent from this man’s. His gaze was filled simply with mischief and male appreciation.
Somehow that was easier to bear right now.
“I’m the guy who fucked you into three screaming orgasms, babe.”
“I see asshole runs in your family.” The full reality of talking to a stranger she’d screwed in a public place,
on camera,
a stranger who happened to be Alec’s brother, and had
wings,
and had been a
corpse
a minute ago, hit her hard and she leaned heavily on her countertop. “I could use a good bout of unconsciousness right about now.”
“Reed,” he said more softly, his leer fading into something more sincere. “My name is Reed, Evangeline.”
“What did you do to me?”
“Did Alec tell you that you’re marked now?” Reed settled onto a barstool and picked an apple from the fruit bowl. “Damned to hunt the scourge of the earth and make the world safer for everyone?”
“I got the damned part.
Who’s
doing the damning is a bit murky.”
“Let’s just say you should reconsider being an agnostic.”
Eve turned on the faucet and splashed water over her face. “Christ . . . Shit!” she hissed, as her mark burned.
He grinned. “You’re getting warmer.”
“Ha-ha.” Forcing herself to act normal, she retrieved one of the mugs she’d set out earlier and filled it with steaming coffee. “Why now? It’s been ten years.”
“The wheels of justice turn just as slowly up there as they do down here.”
“How does Alec fit into all of this?” She shot a worried glance over her shoulder. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. It’s not the first time he’s killed me. As for how he fits . . .” Reed shrugged. “He could have spared you if he’d kept his dick in his pants.”
Grabbing creamer out of the fridge, Eve poured a liberal splash into her mug. “I understand that part. Is he under some sort of vow of celibacy?” She liked the thought of that.
Reed laughed. “That’s rich.”
Scowling, she returned the creamer to its spot in the fridge door and shut it with more force than necessary.
“Sweetheart, your name may be Eve, but in this lusty tale, you play the apple. ‘Look, but don’t touch.’” Reed took at hearty bite of the Red Delicious in his hand.
“That’s sick. Who tortures people like that?”
“Free will,” he said, chewing with obvious relish. “You always get a choice, but sometimes it’s obvious which choice you’re supposed to make. If you decide to do your own thing, you pay the consequences.” Reed licked his lips. “If Alec had made the right choice, you’d be married now with two kids. Happy as a clam.”
Eve stared into her coffee and wondered what that life would have been like.
“So what’s the mark for?” she asked finally.
Studying Reed over the rim of her mug, Eve noted that his hair was much shorter than Alec’s, his lips thinner, the air about him more intense. Unlike Alec’s grungy attire, Reed’s garments were perfectly tailored. Today he sported fitted gray slacks and a black dress shirt, worn open at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves.
“Well, the mark has several uses. It originally put you in line for a hearing. The court docket is full and it’s important to get penciled in as soon as possible.”
“A hearing?”
“Everyone gets a hearing, babe.” His smile affected her; there was no getting around it. Fact was, it wasn’t just his similarities to Alec that were attractive. “Alec’s contribution to the mark waived the hearing and acts as somewhat of a plea bargain. Instead of arguing your case, you get to earn your indulgences in the field.”
“Why doesn’t that sound as if he did me a favor?”
Reed shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it. It was the only way to guarantee that he would be with you all the time. If you’d gone to trial, you would have been assigned to whichever position was next in the queue that you were best qualified for. Not all positions require mentors and not all positions are in the field.” His gaze narrowed as he considered her. “This way, he’s certain to be with you.”
“And what am I supposed to do in the field?”
“Hunt demons, feral fey, rogue interdimensional beings, warlocks, and various other nasties. You’re going to have to work for absolution just as Alec has been doing for centuries.”
“Centuries?” She was in lust with a man who was
centuries
old? Eve set her coffee down before she dropped it again. “He’s immortal?”
“Almost. Marks heal quickly, so it takes a lot to kill one. There’s no time limit on how long you have to prove your worth, and the whole ‘sevenfold vengeance’ protection has a way of scaring off most hazards to your health.”
“Sevenfold vengeance?”
“It’s mentioned in the book of Genesis. ‘And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.’ You’ve got the mark. You get the protection.”
“How bad is that? The sevenfold stuff.”
“Whatever the demon does to the Mark, they get the same in return. Seven times over.”
Eve’s brows rose. “That could be bad, I take it.”
“Usually so. As I said, it works as a deterrent most of the time. Only the most evil, wretched, and insane creatures don’t care.”
“Lovely.”
He stood and rounded the kitchen island. There was no mistaking the change in his focus.
She lifted her chin. He caged her in with the counter at her back. “In addition to learning how to kill and dealing with a fear of all things evil, you’ve got Alec to manage, and your feelings about what happened to you because of his lust.” He held up the half-eaten apple between them. “Then there are the apples.”
She arched a brow, hoping to hide how her body responded to his nearness. Her senses remembered him—his smell, the power and heat of his large frame, the near brutality of his passion. The orgasms he’d wrung from her body.
“The apples?” she asked softly, focusing on his lips as they curved into a feral smile.
Reed ran the bitten side of the apple from the hollow of her throat down to her cleavage. Shivering, Eve reached behind her and gripped the edge of the counter. He lowered his head slowly, watching her, giving her time to pull away. His tongue touched her skin and slid up the trail he’d made in a long, slow glide. His teeth nipped at her chin, then he moved to take her mouth. She turned her head away.
His warm chuckle filled the electrically charged air between them. Then he changed tactics, sliding his hand into her robe and cupping her breast. As his fingers found her nipple and pinched roughly, his tongue slid along the shell of her ear. “Apples, baby. Temptations. The exercising of your free will.”
Reed’s hips pressed against hers, his knees bending so that the hard ridge of his cock notched into the softness of her sex. He thrust gently, nudging her. She gasped, but kept her hands on the counter. Her body was so tightly strung the slightest provocation had her ready to tear of her clothes. Anytime. Anywhere.
“I wondered,” he breathed, his lips to her ear, “what you had that twisted Cain up in knots.” His other hand cupped her ass and urged her to rock into him as he tugged and rolled her nipple, sending shockwaves down to the aching flesh between her legs. “Now I know.”
“Back off.”
His tongue thrust into her ear and her knees buckled. “Hottest, tightest fuck I’ve ever had. Your slick pussy sucking on my cock. And those sounds you make . . . those little whimpers . . .” He growled. “I want to take you right now. Hard and deep. Pound my dick into you and watch you come until you can’t take any more.” His hand on her ass slid lower, lifting her leg to anchor it onto his hip. His thrusts grew bolder, more fervent, his chest rising and falling with his harsh breathing. “You’re a predator now, Eve. And predators like to fuck.”
“Back off!” Eve’s hands went to his shoulders and pushed. He flew across the room and landed in a heap on her living room rug.
“Oh my god,” she breathed. The damn mark seared her skin anew and made her dizzy.
Reed threw his head back and laughed, rising to his feet with an easy grace. “See? You’re beginning to catch on already.”
He reached down and adjusted himself, drawing her attention to the obvious wet spot on his pants where she’d been rubbing against him. “Watch out for the apples, babe.”
With a rakish wink, he disappeared—vanished—just as Alec had, and a moment later Alec was back. Still naked, but minus the blood, his handsome face marred by a fierce scowl.
Eve picked up the apple and threw it at him.
Alec caught the apple and crushed it into a juicy pulp with his fist.
He was a successful hunter because of his patience. Unlike most Marks, his goal wasn’t quantity but quality. Infernals were like all parasitic organisms. They learned, adapted, mutated. As they survived repeated attempts on their lives, they grew stronger and more formidable.
When Alec was summoned to make a kill, he was prepared to wait for days, weeks, months, or even years to strike. Long, protracted battles were wearisome and drew too much attention. He preferred a quick assassination, and he bided his time until that opportunity presented itself.