Avenging Angel (The Fallen #4)(44)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Tanner’s eyes opened. Bastion stood just beyond Marna’s shoulder. Watching. Waiting. Did this ass**le really have to be the one to come for him? Figured.

“Got it!” And what was Cody sounding so freaking happy about?

But then the fierce pressure in his chest eased. He glanced at Cody and saw the bloody knife blade in his brother’s hand. “Now just stay alive,” Cody told him, voice grim and haggard—probably because his throat was still damaged, “until I can get you stitched back up.”

He wished he could but . . .

Death is coming for me. No, Death was right there waiting. Tanner’s gaze returned to Marna. Her cheeks were wet. Crying? Over him? He wasn’t worth an angel’s tears. Never had been. She should know that. She should also know . . .

“You were the best . . . thing . . . I ever had.” The only thing, other than his brother, that had ever mattered.

So it seemed only right that she’d be the last vision he saw on this earth. The flames in hell would never burn her memory from him.

Let ’em f**king try.

“Time to go,” Bastion said, his voice rumbling like thunder.

Tanner’s eyelids began to sag.

Kill to keep her . . .

The man might be fading, but the beast was still struggling inside of him. Fighting. Clawing. Desperate to reach out to the one woman he’d wanted to claim as—

Mate.

Jonathan Pardue raced into the swamp, his legs running as fast as they could. Behind him, a fire crew battled the blaze, a blaze that had destroyed the house of Tanner’s brother, Cody.

It had taken him too long to track Tanner to this place. Too long to break free of those cuffs and haul ass out of the city.

Now, he just might be too late.

All of his plans. All his work.

Too late?

Hell, no. Things couldn’t end like this. “Tanner!” Jonathan shouted his partner’s name, but heard nothing. What he wouldn’t give to have a shifter’s sense of hearing or smell right then.

Where are you?

Tanner had taken the angel with him. She had to hate the swamp. If the stories about her fall were true—stories he’d forced supernaturals to tell him in the last few days—then she would have good cause to avoid the swamp.

Only she was out there now. With Tanner. With Cody?

More cops would be coming soon. They’d bring dogs. They’d search every inch of the area. Jonathan had to find Tanner before the others did.

But . . . where? “Tanner!” Darkness was coming, sweeping over the area in shades of muted red as the sun began to sink into the sky. It looked like damn blood in the sky.

He rushed ahead. Turned to the left. The right. Saw only more twisting trees with heavy moss hanging from their branches.

Swearing, he spun around. He’d go back. He could retrace his footsteps, check to the left, and—

And his gaze fell on footprints on the ground. He yanked out his flashlight. Shone the faint glow on those small impressions.

Hell, yes.

His left hand clamped tight around the flashlight, and his right hand reached for his gun.

Time to go. The words seemed to freeze Marna’s blood. She grabbed for Tanner, pulling him close even as she turned on Bastion with a fury she’d never felt before. “No!”

But Bastion just stood there, face cold and hard and stoic, with his wings pulled low near his body. “Your shifter’s time is up. His body’s dying.”

She shook her head, frantic. He couldn’t leave her yet.

“Didn’t you see what he did?” Bastion took a step closer.

Cody kept working on his brother’s chest. Swearing and muttering, apparently oblivious to the angel who waited just steps away. An angel who, unlike her, could truly kill with a touch.

“He protected me,” Marna said, lifting her chin. He was always protecting her.

Cody glanced up at her, brows pulling together. “Yeah, that’s just great. My brother’s a hero, but right now we need to—”

“You can’t take him!” Now she sounded desperate, like others before her—so many others over the centuries. She’d never understood their rage and helplessness.

She did now.

Cody blinked. Then his eyes widened, and he followed her gaze over his shoulder. “One of ’em . . . one of the angels is here?”

She barely nodded. “Work faster,” she whispered to him. Could Cody really not see the angel? He wasn’t a pureblood demon, so maybe he couldn’t see Bastion.

Or maybe he could.

Bastion’s lips tightened. “There is no delaying, no deals, no borrowing. There is only death. You know this.”

His eyes were too bright. His words too strong. He seemed satisfied. Almost eager. Did Bastion want to take Tanner’s soul?

Yes.

“Come on, Tanner, fight. Shift again for me.” Cody’s desperate voice.

Because a shift would give Tanner strength. That was the way it worked for the shifters. That was how they got their power. Their strength came from the beast.

She’d already seen just how strong and dangerous Tanner’s beast could be.

Bastion sighed softly. His wings moved with a faint rustle of sound. “He’s too weak to shift. He’ll die soon, and I’ll take him.”

And she’d be alone again. Marna glanced back down at Tanner. She held him cradled in her arms. So big. So powerful. So . . . still.

“What can I do?” Her own voice came out sounding broken.

“Nothing,” was Bastion’s answer.

But Cody, his hands bloody and still pushing against Tanner’s chest to apply pressure to the terrible wound, looked up at her. “What would you do?”

To save him? “Anything.”

Bastion lunged at her. He caught her chin in his hand and made her look up at him. “He’s a killer.”

He was also the only man who’d ever made her feel like she was more than an instrument of death.

Cody grabbed the knife blade that had been in Tanner’s chest. He wiped off the weapon on his pants, smearing red. “Bleed for him.”

Marna jerked her chin from Bastion’s hold and looked at Cody. “What?”

He reached for her wrist. Did he realize how close he was to touching Bastion? No, you never knew the danger of a death angel. Not until it was too late.

“There’s nothing more powerful than angel blood. It has magic in it. So much magic.” He licked his lips and gripped the knife blade with a tight fist. “I’ve seen it even bring a woman back from the dead.”