“That’s not what I meant. I just know how you are. You take everything onto your shoulders like that guy who holds up the world, and you shouldn’t. You’re not nearly as muscular.”
“Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked him. Angel. A thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger.
“Just ’cause you’re supposed to be, I guess.”
“Oh, right, I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Why do you think you’re here?”
“To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses,” I answered. “Duh.”
“Well, if you knew…” A glimmer of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
Reyes stirred beside me, and Angel’s gaze darted to him.
“Why do you suppose he’s here?” I asked Angel, indicating Reyes with a nod of my head.
Angel thought about it, then said, “To wreak havoc and misery upon the masses.” He left out the
I glanced at Reyes. His gaze was locked on to Angel, as if in warning.
“I’m outta here,” Angel said. “My mom has a hair appointment in the morning. I like to watch her get her hair done.”
It wasn’t the lamest excuse he’d ever used, but it was pretty darned close.
“Will you just tell me next time?” I asked.
He winked at me, the flirt. “We’ll see.” Then he was gone.
“Why do
My pulse had quickened the moment I realized he was beside me. Now that we were alone, it charged headlong into warp drive, heedless of any stars lurking nearby. Reyes’s energy was like a tangible thing, electric and arousing as it encapsulated my body. He hadn’t moved, but I could feel him everywhere.
Trying to keep my wits about me, or at least nearby, I asked him, “What
Without saying a word, he reached over and took hold of the blanket, tugged it off me, exposing my skin to his heat. I leaned toward him, ran my fingertips along the silky lines and curves that made up his tattoo. It was futuristic and primitive at once, a combination of intertwining lattice that ended in sharp tips like those on his sword and smooth curves that wound around his biceps to disappear under his shirtsleeve. The tattoo was one solid work of art that spanned his shoulder blades and spiraled over both shoulders and down both arms. And it meant something. Something big. Something … important.
Then suddenly I was lost. I fell in like Alice in Wonderland, stumbled along the curves, feared I would never escape. It was a map of an entrance. I had seen it before in another life, and I didn’t associate it with fond memories. It felt like a warning of some kind. An omen.
And then it hit me. It was the tumbling, mazelike mechanisms of a lock that opened a realm of devastating darkness.
It was the key to the entrance of hell.
A jolt of shock snapped me back to the present. As if I’d been drowning, I broke through the surface with a gasp, filling my lungs with air. I turned to Reyes, looked at him in horror, and slowly, very slowly, started edging out of his reach.
But he knew. I’d figured out what he was, and he knew. Comprehension dawned in his eyes and he grabbed for me, the movement like a cobra strike. I tried to scramble out of his grasp, but he’d caught my ankle, pulled, and was on top of me at once, pinning me to the floor, holding me there as I thrashed about, fought for my freedom with nails scraping and teeth gnashing. He was simply too strong and too fast. He moved like the wind and thwarted my every attempt at escape.
After a moment, I forced myself to calm down, to slow my racing heart. He’d locked my hands above my head, his body, lean and hard, acting as a blockade if I should change my mind. I lay there winded, eyeing him warily, my mind racing in a hundred different directions as I panted beneath his weight. And a strange, unsettling emotion skimmed across his face. Was it … shame?
“I’m not him,” he said through gritted teeth, unable to meet my eyes.
He was lying. There was no other explanation. “Who else bears that mark?” I asked, trying with all my being to sound disgusted instead of hurt and betrayed and more than a little dumbfounded. I lifted my head until our faces were inches apart. He smelled like a lightning storm with the promise of rain. And he was hot, as usual, almost scorching against my skin. He was also out of breath. That should have given me some consolation, but it didn’t. “Who else in this world or the next?”
When he didn’t answer, I tried to squirm out from under him again. “Stop,” he said, his voice raw, husky, as if filled with pain. He gripped my wrists tighter. “I’m not him.”
Laying my head back, I closed my eyes. He shifted on top of me, angled for a better hold.
“Who else in this world or the next bears that mark?” I asked again. I looked at him, accused him with my glare. “The mark of the beast. Who else has the key to hell branded on his body? If not him, then who?”
He rested his head against his shoulder, as if trying to hide his face. A deep sigh whispered across my cheek. When he spoke, his voice was filled with such shame, such indignation, I had to steel myself to keep from flinching. But what he said left me breathless.
“His son.” He looked at me then, scrutinized my expression, tried to decide if I believed him. “I am his son.”
A shock wave jolted through me. What he was saying was impossible.
“I’ve been in hiding from him for centuries,” he said, “waiting for you to be sent, to be born upon the Earth. The God of Heaven does not send a reaper often, and each time before you, I’d felt such disappointment, such utter loss.”
My lashes fluttered in confusion. How could he know such things? But perhaps the more important question was, “Why were you disappointed?”
He turned his face away before he answered, as if ashamed. “Why does the Earth seek the warmth of the sun?”
My brows slid together, trying to understand.
“Or the forest seek the embrace of the rain?”
I shook my head, but he continued.
“When I knew he was going to send you, I chose a family and was born upon the Earth as well. To wait. To watch.”
After a moment, I asked, more than a little appalled, “And you chose Earl Walker?”
A corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile as his gaze traveled over my face. He released one hand, slid his fingertips over my arm to rest on my neck. “No,” he said, staring at me with a feverish intensity, as if mesmerized. “A man took me from my birth family, kept me a while, then traded me to Earl Walker. Knowing I would have no memory of my past while I was human, I gave up everything to be with you. I didn’t find out who I was … what I was, until I’d been in prison for years. My origins came to me in pieces, in fractured dreams and broken memories, like a puzzle that took decades to assemble.”
“You didn’t remember who you were when you were born?”
His grip on my wrists eased, but just barely. “No. But I’d done my research well. I should have grown up happy, gone to the same schools as you, the same college. I knew I would have no control over my own destiny once I became human, but it was a chance I was willing to take.”
“But, you’re his son,” I said, trying really hard to hate him. “You’re the son of Satan. Literally.”
“And you are the stepdaughter of Denise Davidson.”
Wow. That was a bit harsh, but, “Okay, point taken.”
“Are we not all products of the world we were born into just as much as, if not more than, the parents we were given to?”
I’d heard the nature-versus-nurture argument all through college, but this was a little hard to justify. “Satan is just so … I don’t know, evil.”
“And you think I am evil as well.”
“Like father, like son?” I said by way of explanation.
