to have balls of steel. Zach would fight her every step of the way to the bedroom, and probably even blame her for his introduction to passion.
Now that might be fun to watch.
If the circumstances had been any different, Paris might have unleashed Sex’s special scent upon the angel. More than likely even Zach would fall prey to the lush, candlelight-and-silk-sheets imagery that always consumed everyone else, and his horror at wanting Paris would amuse for centuries to come.
Sienna stiffened. As attuned to her every nuance as he was, Paris’s attention whipped to her. The roses had returned to her cheeks, but they were too bright, as if she were suffering with a fever. Her eyes, now more emerald than gold, were glued ahead—on the castle that had just crested into view.
Her bond to the structure must be growing stronger, he thought.
Paris wrapped his arm around her and tugged her as close as he could get her, remaining careful of her wings. She didn’t protest. In fact, she nuzzled her cheek against his neck, warm and soft and his.
He kissed her temple. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you go.”
A sigh of relief and unmistakable gratitude. “Than— I mean, whatever.”
“Good girl,” he said with a grin.
Zacharel frowned at them. “Do you still mean to part?”
Paris lost his good humor, and shot the angel an I-hope-you-die-painfully glare. Now was so not the time to get into that.
“Yes,” Sienna said in a tone as cold and biting as the wind buffeting against Zacharel. Then, contradicting the harsh affirmation, she rubbed a fist against her chest as though a hot poker burned there. “We’re still going to part.”
Indignation rose up, but Paris swallowed it back. That was the way it had to be. He knew it, had agreed to it. Shit, he’d even been the one to suggest it.
“This is good.” The angel nodded his approval, the action allowing several snowflakes to catch in the satin of his hair.
“Why do you care?” Paris demanded. He still hadn’t figured out the reason for Zacharel’s continued presence.
A shrug of one strong shoulder. “I would not say I care. I simply know that the two of you cannot successfully sustain a relationship.”
With that note of truth in his voice, it was clear the angel wholeheartedly believed what he’d said. “Our relationship isn’t your business, so your opinions aren’t welcome.”
“Actually, the two of you were made my business.”
Paris saw red. Demon-red. A volatile reaction when one was not needed, but he was helpless against it. Sheer will alone kept his hands at his sides rather than hammering into Zacharel’s face. “By who?”
Wings of white and gold spread, the angel beside him one moment, then in front of him the next. Zacharel’s feet floated above the ground, those wings flapping slowly, holding him steady. Paris had to grind to an abrupt stop to avoid slamming into him. Around them, snowflakes tumbled and swirled only to land and melt.
In case things got ugly, he shoved Sienna behind him. “What happened to being too weak to fly?”
“I have regained my strength.”
“How?”
“The answer will not change what is about to happen.”
He arched a brow, weapon at the ready. “Are you sure you want to go this route?”
“Some part of you hopes to keep her. Otherwise, you would not have reacted so violently to my observation.” Before Paris could respond, he added, “Do you recall when I told you that if you continued on your current path, you would lose everything you’d come to love?”
He popped his jaw. Only the gentle caress of Sienna’s hands on his back prevented him from hurling obscenities.
“I did not lie, demon. I never do. And now I think it’s time I proved just how terrible an enemy I can be.”
Paris blinked. Suddenly he hovered in the air, high above the castle’s drawbridge, Zacharel cradling him against a hard chest honed on the battlefield. His heart pounded an unsteady beat.
“How the hell did you do that?” And where the hell was Sienna?
“With powers you cannot begin to imagine. But this is not what I wished to show you.” One finger at a time, the angel loosened his grip. “I hope that you will soon learn I can help you…or destroy you.”
“You better not do what I think you’re going to do, you dirty piece of—”
His anchor vanished, and Paris free-fell toward the dilapidated slats of wood. He landed on the creaking boards with a hard slam and good loss of oxygen. Behind him, he heard the gargoyles screaming out their war cries, the flap of their wings, the scrape of their claws.
Zacharel had. He really had. “Son of a bitch!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“COME. I WILL ESCORT YOU to the exit.”
Sienna gaped at Zacharel, who had just appeared in front of her. Paris and the angel had been standing in front of her, bucking up against each other, ready to throw down as testosterone charged the air, only to disappear without warning. The angel had returned the very next second. Without Paris.
“Where is he?” she demanded, though she wasn’t too worried about the answer. Paris and Zacharel were friends despite their differences, and Wrath had yet to make a peep.
“I took him to the castle and dropped him on the bridge.”
Reevaluation time. Paris and Zacharel were not friends on any level. Wrath, on the other hand, must think angels could do no wrong. “Why would you do that?” Sure, Paris would be carried inside and locked up. Sure, he would escape, and he would be fine. But none of that mattered to her just then. Fury rose, dark and hot and dangerous.
Zacharel blinked as if the answer should be obvious to one and all. “That, as you called it, is what one male does to another when they are arguing.”
“No. No, it’s not.”
His lips edged down in the slightest of frowns. “That is what your Paris did to William of the Dark only this morn.”
Well, she had no comeback for that, did she?
Zacharel shook out his wings, the white-and-gold feathers lifting slowly, elegantly. Snow glistened between the down. Her anger did nothing to lessen the impact of his beauty, the murky landscape somehow providing a suitable backdrop for him, dark where he was light.
No, not light, she mused. An aura of dawn radiated from him, causing him to glow.
“Well?” she prompted. “Will you take me to him?”
“Your eyes…” he said, his frown deepening.
“What about them?”
“I can see that Paris’s darkness has taken root inside you already.”
He spoke the words and somehow she knew they were true, the knowledge simply becoming a part of her. Paris’s darkness, the one his demon had given birth to, was indeed inside her. A small twinge of worry was quickly followed by a shrug of unconcern. Wrath lived inside her. What was one more entity?
“You’ve ignored my first question long enough. Now I’m taking over. Listen up, and listen good. I want you to take me back to the castle.”
The demand was unwise, unnecessary and counterproductive to her screw-Cronus plan, followed by her bagging and tagging of Galen, as well as her search for her sister, but that wasn’t going to stop her. Paris would fight to reach her, that protective side of his demanding he witness her escape from the realm, she knew that now.
