Avenging Angel (The Fallen #4)(50)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Are you using again?” Tanner demanded.

Using? Suspicion snaked through her, and that suspicion was confirmed when Cody started to sweat.

He told Tanner, “No. I don’t do that. Haven’t in years.”

She realized he was talking about drugs. After all, she knew all about the addictive mix that was demons and drugs. Many demons used the drugs to dampen their darker impulses but only learned, too late, that the drugs made them worse.

And no one could grow addicted as fast as a demon.

“You’re keeping secrets,” Tanner said, with a sad shake of his head. “Those will come back to bite you in the ass.”

Cody stalked a few feet away from him. The bloody cloth had fallen to the floor. His throat had healed, mostly. Jaw clenched, he met Tanner’s gaze. “I . . . sold angel blood.”

Now Marna was the one to leap forward. “You did what?”

He wet his lips and stared at the floor before seeming to force his stare to rise. “A few months ago, when I had to run that transfusion from Azrael . . .”

Marna’s knees locked at the name. Azrael was one of the most powerful angels of death she’d ever met. Well, he had been that way, until his fall. Then he’d become something even more dangerous.

Not like me. Everyone knew to stay away from Azrael, or he’d obliterate them.

Why couldn’t she just have some of that power? The torching was nice, but she needed more magic in order to keep breathing.

“Azrael gave his blood in order to save his human.” Tanner’s voice was flat. “I was there, it was a fast transfusion. There was no choice.”

Azrael’s human. The female that Brandt had claimed as his mate. Only Az had taken her from him, and Az had been the one to send Brandt to hell.

She owed the powerful Fallen for that. It should have been my kill.

Az had just beaten her to the punch.

“There was some . . . extra blood.” Now shame coated Cody’s words. “I knew how powerful it was, and I couldn’t just destroy it.”

So he’d started selling the blood of her kind? “Do you know what Azrael will do to you,” Marna asked quietly, “when he realizes what you’ve done?”

A faint nod. Then a laugh that was desperate before he said, “Why do you think I was burning my place and trying to run? I want out of this town before he comes gunning for me.”

“There’s nowhere to hide from him.” Marna voiced the simple truth that he should have already known. “Az can find you wherever you go.”

Tanner’s fist slammed into the wall. “Dammit, you’re the one who has all the supernaturals in this town so hot for angel blood! You turned them on to its power!”

Cody’s shoulders couldn’t hunch much more. “I—I was just trying to help. There was a demon. She was dying, and she was only eighteen. Just a kid. The drugs had eaten her up, and she couldn’t even move. I had to try something. Hell, I didn’t even mean to sell the blood!” His words tumbled out. “I swear, I was just trying to help. I wasn’t even sure it would work until . . .” He glanced at Marna from the corner of his eye.

“Until?” she pushed. Anger had heated her blood. Selling the blood of my kind. And she’d thought she owed this guy?

He exhaled heavily. “I gave her a small transfusion. Within the hour, all of her withdrawal symptoms from the drugs were gone. She was normal, closer to normal than she’d ever been before in her whole life. She didn’t hear voices. Didn’t want to hurt herself. It was like she was glowing on the inside.”

His gaze rose to catch Tanner’s stare. “Her father’s a human. A rich one. You know the half-breeds are always hit worse by the darkness.”

Tanner didn’t speak.

Cody’s shoulders straightened, and his chin lifted. “He forced me to take the money. Said I’d saved her life, that I had to take it. And I—I thought I could use the cash to help someone else. To buy more equipment.”

But Marna could guess what happened next. “Word spread about how you’d helped her.”

A grim nod. “Soon everyone wanted angel blood. It . . . healed the demons, but it also did more.”

“Sonofabitch.” Tanner turned from him and stalked toward Marna. “No wonder you wanted me to take her blood. You knew just what it could do.”

“It could save you!”

It had. Marna lifted her hands. Turned them over and stared at the thin veins beneath her skin. All the hunting and all the death, just for her blood?

Marna took a deep breath and asked the question she feared, “What more does it do?” To make so many desperate . . .

“It ramps up a supernatural’s power. One dose can make a level-three demon closer to a level six. It’s like a shot of pure—”

“Magic,” Tanner finished as his hand caught hers. His fingers traced over the veins inside her wrist. Marna shivered.

Cody kept talking, saying, “But then my supply ran out, and folks out there started getting desperate. They wanted more.”

“Because it’s addictive,” Marna said as Tanner’s words from before echoed in her mind. He’d warned her upstairs. But wasn’t power always addictive? Especially to the supernaturals.

“No wonder there are so many folks coming after me,” Marna muttered. “I’m a freaking walking buffet for them.” Because she was the weak angel in town.

It sucked having that tagline attached to her. I’ve got to do something. She had to amp up her own power, just like—

Her chin rose. “I need to see Sammael.”

Tanner blinked, but it was Cody who gave a low whistle and said, “Ah, Sammael? Are you sure about that? He killed two vamps just last week for—”

“For what?” Marna snapped at him, because she could guess their crime. “For trying to take his special blood?”

Cody’s lips clamped together.

“Maybe he didn’t feel like bleeding,” Marna said. And neither did she. “Sammael and Az are the most powerful Fallen I know. They can show me how to protect myself.”

“You mean they can teach you to kill.” Why was Cody suddenly so chatty with her? He’d been the quiet one, before.

Tanner’s gaze just searched her face. “Is that what you really want? To be like them?”

To be able to kill with a touch. No, she’d never wanted that. She liked touching Tanner and finding pleasure, but if she wanted to stay alive, there wasn’t a choice. “It’s what I have to do.”