Apparently I’d been holding my breath, though I wasn’t quite sure why.
I could see him quite well through the thick shadows. The light from the bedroom pooled at the entrance to the main room, and I could see the glitter of his strange eyes, the expression of weariness across the elegant lines of his face. He pushed his hair away from his face, as if pushing something unacceptable away from him. And then he lifted his head to look at me.
And I knew what was coming next, as clearly as if I’d thought of it myself.
“No,” I said flatly.
A faint smile curved his mouth. “No, what? I didn’t ask you anything.”
“Just no,” I said, refusing to show how nervous he made me. I moved, suddenly busy. “Do you have extra sheets, maybe a pillow? I can make up the couch for the night until we find someplace else for me to sleep. I certainly don’t want to drive you out of your bedroom, though you were very kind to have brought me in there last night. At least, I assume it was you—maybe Sarah was responsible, which is very like her. She’s quite kind, and I’m sorry I ever suggested she was—”
“Be quiet, Allie,” he said.
It was the first time he’d used my name. Not my full name, but the more familiar nickname. I froze, my words vanishing, as if he’d shut them off with a wave of his hand as he had the lights.
He approached me slowly, and a part of me wanted to run. Not that there was any place to go except straight off the balcony. He’d locked the front door.
Why?
He stopped directly in front of me, too close for me to escape, crowding me and yet not touching me. “Look at me,” he said in a low, soothing voice.
“I am.”
He shook his head and made another gesture, and overhead lights I hadn’t known existed blazed on. They should have been blinding, but I was already in some kind of daze. “Open your eyes and look at me,” he said again, and his soft voice had steel beneath it.
So I did. Looked up into his gloriously striated eyes, almost like those of a cat. Looked up and felt him invade me, as surely as if he had me underneath him, skin to skin. He was inside me, an act of complete possession, and I tried to say something, to protest, but all that came out was a soft, defensive mew of pain. He didn’t retreat, and I felt staked, like a butterfly with a giant pin through my heart. I could feel my body lift, rise slightly, and I knew I was no longer touching the floor. I tried to push him out, but he was much too strong to fight. All I could do was remain there, suspended, as he scoured my body, and I felt a scream inside my chest, my heart, desperate to escape.
And then, as quickly as it had happened, it was over, and he released me. The bright lights vanished, my feet touched the floor, and I collapsed, nerveless.
He caught me as I fell, and I wanted to scream at him, to hit him, but I couldn’t summon the energy. He set me down on the sofa with unexpected gentleness. “Lie down,” he murmured. “It will pass in a moment.”
I had no choice. I lay back, trying to catch my breath, trying to fight the sharp pain between my breasts, as if he’d caught my heart in his fist and squeezed it. I closed my eyes, and felt everything begin to fade. I had long enough to wonder if I was dying all over again, if Raziel had done something to end me. And then darkness came down.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I SAT BACK ON THE SOFA ACROSS from her, watching her. Even in the shadowy light she was color against the soothing white, the richness of her thick brown hair, the warm tones of her skin, the black silk of the clothes she’d taken from me. She was heat, she was fire, deadly to me, and yet somehow irresistible.
She was no demon. I was as sure of that as I could possibly be, short of taking her blood. She was human, and vulnerable despite her attempts to shock me. She was vulnerable, and the best thing I could do was leave her alone.
I couldn’t. Not after the Grace of Knowing. Looking so deeply into her had been an act of intimacy from which there was no coming back. There was a bond between us that I didn’t want, but it existed anyway, and it was purely sexual. An animal need that I wasn’t going to fight anymore. I was going to fuck her. I could imagine Uriel howling, and I thought the word again.
And if she was a demon, I would kill her.
She stirred. She was going to be angry with me for what I’d done to her, and I didn’t blame her. It was an invasion, one she’d accepted. One of many she’d accept.
I could scoop her up and carry her into the bedroom, have her clothes off before she realized what I was doing. It would simplify matters. But just as she had allowed me to look inside her, she would have to allow me to be inside her. And if she had any remaining defenses, they would shatter as she did.
She moved, then lay still. “You son of a bitch,” she said quietly.
“I’m not the son of anything. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been violated.”
“That’s about right.”
She sat bolt upright and glared at me, ready for battle. “And I don’t suppose you feel any remorse.”
“Why should I? I needed to see if you were a demon.”
She looked at me blankly for a moment. “A demon? Do they even exist? Hell, of course they do. Angels and demons and vampires and cannibals.
What other treats do you have in store? Shape- shifters? Werewolves?”
I didn’t move. I was hard, and had been since I’d gone into her, my body desperate to follow. And I knew, even as I’d pulled back, that I’d left enough behind that her defenses would be down.
I needed them that way. More than anything on this earth or the next, I wanted to be able to walk away from her. To leave my rooms, report to Azazel that she was an innocent, and leave her disposal up to them.
But I was afraid
If Uriel had sent her to infiltrate us, then he would have sent her well armed. The Grace of knowing was powerful, but underestimating Uriel was always a mistake. I was sure she was innocent, caught by a series of coincidences. But I couldn’t afford to be wrong.
She was still glaring at me, her eyes shuttered. I had seen all she would let me see. If I wanted to be certain, to protect Sheol as it needed to be protected, then I had no choice.
I was prepared for resistance. I had kept out of her head as much as I could, but there was no mistaking that she felt the same bond I felt. The same intense, sexual need that I was an expert at denying, had been denying since the moment she had come into my world, thanks to those terrible shoes that had caused her death. I’d been counting on that resistance, along with my own, but that was out the window. The Grace of knowing was not enough.
I rose, and reached my hand out to her. “No,” she said.
I waited. I could do anything I wanted with her. I could force her, then wipe the memory from her brain. I could simply take her blood, just enough to read her, not enough to make me sick. Blood from anyone but the Source or my bonded mate was dangerous, even in small amounts, but it was a risk I had to take.
“Come with me, Allie,” I said. And I made her move, because I could. “Come.” And she rose.
I DIDNT WANT TO MOVE. It didn’t matter. He pulled me up and stood over me. I hated tall men—they made me feel weak and inconsequential. I was still wearing his clothes, his black jacket, his black T-shirt, his black silk trousers. He took the lapels of the jacket and pushed it off my shoulders, down my arms. I stood still, knowing I ought to argue, protest, anything but stand there and let him slide the jacket off me and toss it behind him onto the sofa.
He reached for the hem of my T-shirt, and I wanted to back away, but my feet were rooted to the floor. I tried to stem my panic. This was the fulfillment of a fantasy that obsessed half the teenage girls in the world. It didn’t matter. Having sex with a fallen-angel-slash-vampire was a really bad idea.
“Please don’t,” I said, trying to sound calm and sure of myself. If he did this, I’d have nothing with which to fight him. If he did this, it would matter too much, and I wouldn’t be able to break away. If he did this, it would break my heart.
He pulled my T-shirt up, and I unwillingly lifted my arms to let him peel it off, so that I was standing there in nothing but his loose pants low on my hips. I felt conspicuous, vulnerable, and it took all my self-control to just stand there and look at him.
“I should point out,” he said with surprising gentleness, “that my favorite period of time was the Renaissance.”
With all those voluptuous beauties. He was probably lying, but I gave him points for trying. I still didn’t move.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. He was leaning down, his mouth so close I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face. “I wouldn’t do this to you if it wasn’t necessary.”
I’d been ready for his kiss, but at this my eyes flew open. “What do you mean, ‘necessary’?”
I was silenced, not by one of his slight gestures, but by his mouth on mine as he pulled me into his arms.
It was no sweet kiss of seduction, no chaste, heavenly kiss. It was full and openmouthed and carnal, and I stood frozen in shock as he put one arm around my waist, pulling me against his hard body, and the other had caught my chin, his long fingers cradling my face.
I’d been kissed before, of course. But never like this, with an almost cosmic sense of urgency and longing. I could feel my nipples harden against the solid warmth of his chest, and I could feel the heat between my legs, the clutch of longing in my belly. Who the hell was I trying to fool? I was turned on every time he
