Wicked Nights (Angels of the Dark #1)(80)
Author: Gena Showalter

She’s not a demon! instinct shouted.

He tenderly laid her on the ground, then rushed to strap the dead demon to his back. When he returned to Annabelle, he gathered her close to his chest and stood, careful not to damage her wings further. Her weight barely registered, she was such a slight thing.

Slow and easy, he flew to his former leader’s cloud and demanded entrance. As he waited, Annabelle began to shiver. Her body temperature was too low—because she’d lost too much blood?

The cloud opened to him, and he glided inside. To his despair, Lysander was not the one to greet him. Instead it was Bianka, Lysander’s female, a Harpy with an affinity for trouble and wickedness.

Chewing gum, she looked him and Annabelle over, twirling a strand of her long black hair around her finger. “About time you brought me a cloud-warming gift, but did you have to pick one of the ugliest demons I’ve ever seen?”

“That was so rude, insulting the warrior’s present like that,” another female said. Kaia, Bianka’s twin sister, strode over, a half-empty bottle of Boone’s Farm in her hand. In Burden’s office, what seemed forever ago, she had been dressed for war. Now she was wearing an angel robe and all about relaxation. “Besides, I’ve seen way uglier.”

“Enough,” he growled. Witnessing the twin sisters and their us-against-the-world rapport used to fascinate, reminding him of what he could have had with his brother. Just now, only Annabelle mattered.

The girls looked at each other and giggled, and it was then he knew. They were drunk.

“Why don’t you put it over there,” Bianka said, pointing to someplace behind her, and then beside her and then in front of her, “next to the demon-skin rug I’ll probably give you for Christmas. Or under the table. Or better yet, on the porch where it might be accidentally on purpose kicked to the earth.”

How did his leader stand her? “Where is Lysander?”

She flashed her fangs at him, suddenly irritated. “Someone, and I won’t mention your name, Zach, abandoned his post at the Deity’s temple, which meant my man had to step in and save the day. So I decided to have a girls’ night.”

Another crime Zacharel would be forced to answer for, but that was not a current concern. “My woman needs tending. If you will show me to a bedroom—”

“Told you Big Z had the hots for someone,” Kaia burst out.

“And I told you to stuff it. Guaranteed he misspoke just now.” Bianka anchored her hands on her hips. “Tell my sister you don’t have the hots for a woman. Or a demon. Or anything with a pulse.”

“She is not a demon,” he shouted, the intensity of his anger shaking the cloud.

The black-haired Harpy cringed and clutched her ears. “Uh, do you want to pipe down before I rip out your tongue and slap you with it? Word on the street is, there’s such a thing as an inside voice. I’m skeptical, but do me a favor and give it a try.”

He forced his voice to gentle. “Annabelle is human. My human. She needs help. Now.”

“Let’s back this word train up. A puzzle piece just slid into place inside my magnificent brain. That’s Annabelle?” Kaia stepped forward, clearly intending to brush Annabelle’s hair out of the way and study her face.

He snapped his teeth at her. While he lacked fangs, he did not lack menace. “No touching.”

Kaia acted as if she hadn’t heard him and did exactly as she wanted. Typical of the Harpies. “Okay, wow. It is. What happened to her?”

“I’m not sure.” But I will find out, and I will fix it as promised. “Bedroom. Now. Please,” he added, hoping against hope that would work. With Harpies, you had a fifty-fifty chance of getting what you wanted—or dying.

“You better do it, B,” Kaia said with a sigh. “You know how Lysander gets all wussed-out when you so much as scrape a knee? Well, Zach here is worse with his little princess. Maybe ’cause she’s human and so inferior. Although I think we can scratch the word human from her list of descriptions.”

“She is not inferior,” he roared. “And she is human.”

Bianka studied him for several long, silent minutes. “You’re right, Kye. Zach is worse. So, all right, come on, angel. This way.” She skipped down a hallway.

He trailed after her, leaving a line of snow in his wake.

“Hey, Zach,” Kaia called. There was a pause, the sound of gushing liquid and then a few gulps. She must be drinking straight from the bottle. “You do realize you’ve got a headless demon strapped to your back, right?”

“Of course. I put him there.”

Bianka stopped and waved her hand through the baby-blue mist beside her, a doorway appearing.

Zacharel brushed past her and stepped inside.

A large bed waited in the center, perfect for warrior angels with above-average wingspans, and now perfect for humans with demon wings. He tenderly placed Annabelle on the mattress, smoothed the hair from her face and drew the covers over her body. “We won’t stay long. Demons sense her, wherever she is, and attack.”

“Kye and I just happen to be in need of a good fight. Stay as long as you want.”

That was the thing with the Harpies. They might irritate him, but they always had his back. Even better, they were amazingly skilled warriors. Still, tossing Bianka and Kaia into a dangerous situation—while they were drunk—was a guaranteed way of earning the ire of Lysander and every Lord of the Underworld.

“Thank you, but we’ll be gone within the hour.”

“Dude, you are so missing out on the best nunchuck skills ever, but whatever. I offered, and that’s all I can do—before I pretend you never spoke and do exactly what I want.” He heard footsteps, a grumbled “Save some wine for me, you hussy!” then only the rasp of Annabelle’s breathing.

He removed the demon from his back, the body flopping lifelessly to the floor. The disgusting creature must have opened the urn and touched what it contained inside, the essentia instantly absorbing into his skin.

Zacharel misted his hand, reached inside the creature’s chest and—yes, felt the warm flood of his brother’s essentia against his palm, the fizz of something more than blood, seeking him, wanting out of the demon’s shell.

For a moment, Zacharel was transported back to the night he’d done this to his brother. Just as before, he held tight, and when he pulled his hand free, something thick and clear coated his skin. Something…what was left of his brother. Will not react.