Angel in Chains (The Fallen #3)(63)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Hell.

Mateo jerked away from him. Wind rushed in the air. “Your friend paid me for a job. The job is done.” He tossed Az the bag.

Az caught it and tried to fight the rage surging within him. Jade. Gone.

Bastion should have never touched her. Never. “Is she dead?” he gritted.

Mateo shook his head.

Az took a breath.

“Now you know better than that . . . there’s a price for information.”

Az let his power rip from him. In an instant, fire engulfed the building. The remaining walls burned. The windows exploded. Smoke thickened the air.

Mateo’s eyes widened.

The flames were less than a foot away from the witch. The fire wasn’t touching him, but only because Az didn’t want Mateo dead, not yet.

“I think you’ve confused me with someone else.” Az’s voice boomed from him, easily louder than the crackling flames. “I’m not Sammael. I’m not here to save your ass and play your games.”

With a wave of his hand, he sent the fire to lick across Mateo’s arms. Agony twisted the witch’s face.

“This isn’t hellfire,” Az snarled. “You don’t control it.”

Mateo slapped at the flames, but they just flared higher as he began to scream.

“So the games end now, or you die.”

Mateo fell to his knees. The flames closed in.

“The choice is yours.”

Jade shoved up to her knees. “Okay, angel, I get it. You’re pissed—”

“Angels feel no emotions.”

Yeah, she’d call bullshit on that one. The guy was a big old vibrating ball of emotion—mostly rage.

“Whatever. So I’m the walking dead, and you want to put me in the ground.” She straightened her shoulders. “But here’s the deal. Az isn’t gonna let you do that, okay?” He’d better not. “When he gets here, he’ll be freaking furious, and you don’t want to be in the area when that guy is enraged.”

She’d hoped her threat would make the angel back off long enough for her to get a running start. But he was holding his ground.

Then his lips curved a bit. “I never said Azrael was the one coming to find you.”

Her heart seemed to freeze.

Bastion pointed to the woods behind him. “Your shifter has found a new base. Just a mile or two over that hill.” In the next second, he was at her side. He grabbed her arm, and sliced her flesh with a knife she hadn’t even seen.

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming. Since when did angels go around knifing people? How was that possibly in their job description?

“Your scent is special to the shifter.” Bastion dropped her hand. “He’ll follow the blood trail, and he’ll find you.” He stepped back. His wings began to spread out behind him. She realized then that the jerk was just going to leave her, bleeding, for Brandt to find.

“Order will be restored,” Bastion said.

She covered the wound. He’d sliced her deep, a cut that went almost from elbow to wrist. “Why didn’t you just drop me on the bastard’s doorstep?”

He hesitated.

“Were you scared he’d slice you apart, too?” Her words came fast and she wouldn’t let her gaze drift over Bastion’s shoulder. Don’t come, Brandt. “For the record, he’s the one who attacked the other angel, not Az. Brandt. The guy is some kind of hybrid shifter and angel mix. He attacked her and now—”

Now she definitely had his attention. Bastion stood right in front of her. “Her wings were sliced from her body.”

More rage. And the guy thought he didn’t feel emotion?

“Yes.” Her voice was soft. “We found her in the woods. A doctor is helping her.” She left out the little bit about Cody being a demon doctor.

Bastion’s brows pulled together. “No, Azrael—”

“He found her. Brandt was the one who got off on slicing her apart.” She swallowed. Don’t look over the hill. “Just like he’s going to slice me unless we leave here, now.”

His gaze held hers.

“I’m telling you the truth. It wasn’t Az.” She swallowed. “Please, believe me.”

“Angels can’t lie.” His own voice had softened.

She knew what he meant. Angels couldn’t lie, but humans could. “Humans can also tell the truth.”

He studied her a moment longer, then seemed to . . . believe her? He pulled her against his chest and held tight. His wings were stretching out again as he prepared for flight. In the distance, she could hear snarls.

Brandt had her scent.

They needed to get the hell out of there.

Now.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Az pulled Mateo from the wreckage. Flames shot high up into the air. Sirens blared as the humans raced toward the burning warehouse.

They’d never arrive in time. By the time the fire trucks pulled up, the building would be ash.

He tossed the witch onto the ground. Mateo had talked. Witches, even half-blood ones, couldn’t take the fire.

Az turned away from him.

“S-saw . . . th-this . . .” Mateo’s words froze him. “You . . . destroy . . .”

He’d destroy anyone who tried to take Jade. “I let you live.” After the witch had deliberately betrayed him. Separating him from Jade had been part of the guy’s plan all along. So she’d be vulnerable. Alone. Then Mateo had whipped up the wind in that room so Az couldn’t hear her screams.

Not until it was too late.

He glanced into the sky. The flames and smoke had dimmed the sunlight. Yet as he stared, the clouds seemed to thicken. A dark shape emerged.

A shape with the wide, black wings of a Death Angel.

His back teeth ground together. If Bastion was coming back to taunt him, he’d make the angel pay.

And it was Bastion. There was no mistaking the angel’s form. But—but Bastion wasn’t alone.

Bastion touched down just in front of the flames. He held Jade against his chest. One of Bastion’s arms circled her stomach, and the angel held a knife to her throat.

“Let her go,” Az demanded. The sirens were growing louder. The fire seemed to shriek behind Jade and Bastion.

Bastion’s eyes were wide. “You did this?”

Mateo climbed slowly to his feet. Blisters covered his right arm. They’d heal. Mateo was too powerful not to heal now that he was away from the flames. “She’s not supposed. . . to be . . . here.”

The tip of the knife sliced her throat.