Angels of Darkness

“Thank you, Gregory,” Radha told him. “Good luck with the knee and the recruiters next year.”

“Thanks. If all goes right, in five years you’ll see me throwing in a championship bowl.”

“I hope it does.” She watched him walk back toward the counter, then looked back to Marc. “Some days, I really like people.”

“You don’t usually?” Marc didn’t believe that.

“Oh, I do. But there are some who make me wonder why the hell we’re doing this: always fighting, seeing our friends killed by demons, always seeing so much crap we can’t stop—and most of it stuff that humans do to each other. Not to mention outliving every human around us. And then someone comes along and you think: I’m going to get that bastard demon just so he can’t touch this one.”

“But that’s not your only reason.”

“It’s never my only reason,” she said. “But it feels good. Doesn’t it?”

Marc glanced at the front counter, where the kid was behind the cash register again, one eye on the television. “It does.”

Though she’d gotten her way, once again, she didn’t grin as he expected. Instead, her eyes filled.

Crying? Tension and uncertainty took a freezing grip on his gut. “Radha? You all right?”

She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and turned her face away. After a long moment, she looked back to him—tears gone.

Or were they? With her, it was impossible to know.

But her voice was even and light as she said, “So, what next? Do we wait for Miklia and friends to show?”

No point. They weren’t more likely to talk now than they had been before. At least, not until he had something concrete to approach them with. “What do you make of the physical training, the books?”

“Probably the same thing that you make of it,” she said. “Miklia and her friends saw something the night Jason was killed—they probably saw the demon who killed him. Now they fancy themselves demon hunters. Maybe for revenge, maybe some other reason. So thank goodness for the Rules, yes?”

Yes. Those same rules that forbade Guardians from harming or killing humans also applied to demons, but with harsher consequences. Any Guardian who hurt a human or impeded a human’s free will—even with an action as simple as shoving an unwilling human out of danger’s path—would have to decide whether to ascend to the afterlife or become human again. A Guardian could break the Rules and live, but every demon would be slain. After a demon broke the Rules, there was no escaping the Guardian Rosalia and the powerful vampire Deacon; psychically bound to the demon from the moment it hurt or killed a human, the pair would find and slay the demon within minutes.

Even in the unlikely event that the girls did track down the demon, it couldn’t hurt them. They probably wouldn’t be able to hurt it, either, but Marc cared less about the demon’s chances of surviving than the girls’.

He checked the sky. Ten minutes of daylight left. The vampires in the area would be waking up at sundown. “Let’s talk to Bronner. If these girls looked for information about demons, and if they knew Jason was a part of the community, they might have tried getting it from him or another vampire first.”

“And they might have mentioned what they saw.”

Marc nodded. “Something sent them looking in the right direction. Maybe it was Jason himself, maybe he mentioned demons or Guardians to them. But if they saw something, the questions they asked might give us an indication of what happened that night.”

“How far away is Bronner?”

“Halfway between here and the next town over.”

With a grin, Radha formed her wings. They arched behind her, the white tips sweeping the floor. “So we fly?”

He usually waited for dark. “You can cover mine, too?”

Her hand flew to her chest, as if she’d been wounded. “Your doubt kills me. Oh, Marc. I can make you feel like you’re wearing wings when you aren’t. Of course I can cover them.”

“All right, then.”

He rose from his chair. She did the same, albeit more slowly, and with a glint in her eyes that could have been dangerous or mischievous. She dabbed her forefinger against her cake plate and brought it to her lips, her smile forming beneath the tip.

“You should ask what else I can make you feel.”

She didn’t give him the chance. Her tongue swept across the pad of her finger—and he felt a warm lick against his. He tasted sweet coconut.

Need rushed through him, the ache of arousal. He stared at her, his fingers tightening on the back of the chair, using all of his control not to snap the wood in half—then crash through the table after her.

Her smile widened. “So?”

“It’s good cake,” he said.

Her laugh was light—and so sweet. He’d suffer through any teasing for it.

“No.” She came around the table, letting her fingers trail across the surface, her gold-tipped claw dragging out a long, rough note. “I meant to find out earlier, but we were interrupted. Can a celibate warrior be worked up? Now I’m coming over to see whether one can be.”

To touch him—in the middle of a busy coffee shop, and yet hidden from them all. His fingers clenched on the wood as she stopped beside him. Her gaze dropped to the front of his pants, and he heard the catch of her breath.

“So. They can.”

“I don’t know,” he said, voice rough.

Glowing again, her gaze lifted to his. He gritted his teeth to stifle his groan when she boldly cupped him through his trousers, then slid her palm up his hardened length.

“This is an illusion, too? I don’t think so, Marc.”

His head fell forward. Though everything in him strained toward her, he struggled against the urge to thrust into her hand. “No,” he managed. “I meant: I’m not a celibate warrior. I gave up that idea a while ago.”

Her fingers stilled. Her eyes brightened, shining fiercely gold. “Truly?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

With a grin and a sharp rasp of her claw up his rigid length, she turned for the door, orange scarves swirling around her indigo legs. Marc watched her go, hurting in the best—and worst—possible way.

Good. He had no idea what she meant by that.

He hoped to God he’d find out.

Good, because she’d hate to ask him to break his vows again. If that was where they were headed.

Radha didn’t know if they were, or if she should. She wanted to.

But a hundred and forty years had passed, and he was a different man than she’d known. All good, it seemed, but a few hours couldn’t really tell her. For all she knew, he might be shacked up with a vampire somewhere. He might be in love with someone. She might get hurt again. Or worse, throw herself at him, and discover that she’d been a fool.

Solid, unflappable—but under it all, he was just a man. And a man’s cock hardened when a woman fake- licked coconut icing from his finger. His arousal didn’t mean anything except that he was alive and possessed a healthy libido.

And even if he did want sex, that wasn’t all she wanted. Not anymore. She’d done the pleasure-for-pleasure’s-sake thing. It had been fun while it lasted. But she’d changed, too. Now she needed more . . . and it could never be just fun with Marc.

So rushing would be idiocy. And they were Guardians; they lived a long time. No need to rush anything.

Unfortunately, Radha knew that she was very, very bad at resisting something that she wanted.

At least searching for this demon provided a distraction. Bronner lived along one of the rural roads, and they followed it west, flying under the sliver of a moon. Gently rolling, snow-covered hills passed beneath them. In the