“Not even slightly. He knew what he was doing, and was willing to sacrifice other lives in the process. Your soul was taken against your will and now you’re actively fighting to get it back.”
“I am a fighter.”
“Don’t I know it.” His lips quirked.
“This is why you don’t want the others to know about me, isn’t it? Because if Heaven or Hell found out the truth—you’d have to kill me, too.”
Any humor vanished from Bishop’s expression. It was more than enough to tell me I was right. “Like I said before, Samantha, you can’t let the others know what you are. You won’t like the results.”
He began to turn from me to return to the main club, but I grabbed his arm hard. That familiar charge of celestial energy flew between us—so powerful this time that I swear I saw literal sparks. He froze before he glanced at me again.
I held on to him tighter. “You know, you really piss me off sometimes.”
He didn’t pull away. “Excuse me?”
I hissed out a frustrated breath. “Seriously. You refuse to tell me anything about yourself, except these frustrating bits and pieces. And then when we start talking about something important, you want to turn away and ignore me. But you’re still the only person who wants to protect me. That means something to me.”
Yeah, something big. Way too big to wrap my head around.
“I’m not the only one. Kraven proved tonight he’s more than up to the task of filling in when I’m not around.” His words were tight. “You really don’t think he likes you? I saw the way he was kissing you—tonight and Saturday night. Maybe you should think again.”
Kraven didn’t like me. At all. The two times he’d kissed me—that was only because there wasn’t any other choice. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”
This earned a short, humorless laugh. “Not many people have ever called me ridiculous before. But okay. Don’t let him fool you, though. The brother I knew—that one you might have seen in my memory—is long gone. He’s a demon now. Just because he’s able to play the part of a charmingly sarcastic Boy Scout now and then doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.”
“I guess you have that in common.”
“You’re right. We do.”
“But you’re an angel, not a demon. I know that means you’re good, even if you don’t totally believe it yourself. If you tell me more about your past, I won’t hold it against you. I swear I won’t, Bishop.”
His brows drew tightly together. “Why do you want to know so badly?”
“I just do.” I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him that I wanted to know because every single time I saw him I fell that much harder for him. He might feel the need to protect me, he might feel something for me, but in his mind it was all due to his soul and my hunger. And that hadn’t been proven otherwise.
But for me, I knew it was different. Hunger and heart—they weren’t the same thing, no matter how hard he tried to justify it and explain it away.
No matter how he might have looked at Cassandra, or how much they had in common with each other, he didn’t look at her in the same intense way he looked at me.
The way he was looking at me right now.
He hissed out a breath. “We don’t have time for this right now.”
I sent another furtive glance toward the main club through the beaded curtain. I couldn’t see Kraven anywhere. And Stephen wasn’t around, either. I knew we needed to be out there right now, but I had to do this. I had to know the truth.
“Let me see your memories. You don’t even have to tell me about them—maybe you can just show me. We can try.”
“Samantha, you need to stop being so concerned with my past and be more worried about your future.” His jaw tightened. “And make sure you keep that dagger on you at all times. No matter what. Do you have it tonight?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
He glared at me. “You’re seriously the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. You know that?”
I glared back. “Ditto.” Then I froze as he pressed me back against the wall and slid his hand down my side and over my thigh. “What are you doing?”
“Checking something.”
My heart slammed hard against my rib cage and the delicious scent of him, of his soul, was slowly driving me crazy. He was so close. And his touch, even if it was through my jeans, not against my bare skin, had helped shut off my senses to everything around us—no music, no voices, no crowd, nobody else—only this moment.
“Good,” he whispered as his fingers trailed over the weapon and sheath hidden beneath my loose jeans. “Although, it’ll be too hard to access quickly unless you start wearing short skirts.”
I struggled to breathe normally. “Is that a request?”
“A suggestion.” His now-heated gaze locked with mine and held. “Damn it, Samantha. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?”
“You were not supposed to be part of my problem.”
On the surface, word for word, it almost sounded like an insult. But the way he said it, low and throaty...me being problematic for an angel of death—it was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard in my entire life.
My hunger swirled around me, ever tightening like a cool silk scarf binding me in place. Everything else faded into the background—my future, my survival, the safety of everyone in the city, even the fate of my best friend trapped in the Hollow.
I didn’t care about anything else.
Only Bishop.
“Kraven’s right.” His breath was warm against my cheek. “When I’m this close to you...it’s like being a fly trapped in a spider’s web. I can’t seem to free myself.”
“I want to kiss you right now.” I was completely unashamed by the truth spilling from inside me. “So much. It’s driving me crazy.”
He didn’t reply; he just nodded slowly, his gaze fully fixed on my lips.
“I won’t take it all. I can stop myself before it’s too late.” My hunger turned me into something other than myself, other than the shy and awkward kid who’d only allowed herself crushes on a couple of guys before. The girl who shielded her heart to keep it from being broken. The one who looked in the mirror and still only saw a skinny girl with long, wild hair and barely enough chest to stuff in the smallest bra on the rack.
But Bishop had never looked at me like I was that girl. He looked at me like I was something amazing. Something beautiful beyond words. Something he wanted more than anything or anyone else.
And, at the moment, with the sounds of Ambrosia now only a distant echo, I knew he was every bit as lost as I was.
He drew closer, closer until finally...finally, his lips brushed against mine.
Chapter 16
I literally groaned with pleasure to be able to touch him, to taste him. Bishop’s breath was so warm, so sweet. I wanted more...
“Please,” I whispered, staring deep into his blue eyes. “Bishop, please—”
Snap!
It’s done.
The knife in my hand clatters to the ground. The blood wells beside his body. He stares up at me as he gasps for his last breath. He stares at me as if looking at a stranger instead of his own brother.
“Why would you do this?” he whispers. “Why?”
“Because you had to die today.” I would think I should feel something at this moment, some form of regret, but I feel nothing. Nothing at all.
“You kn
ow what happens to me now. Don’t you care?”
“No, I don’t.”
“What did she promise you? What’s your reward?” The pain in his gaze that I would surprise him like this, that I’d stab my own brother in the back without warning, is deeper than his physical pain.
“Goodbye, James.” I turn from him toward the door.
“You’ll burn for this, you stupid son of a bitch.”
I glance over my shoulder to see the shadows already rising up to claim him. “No. You will.”
Snap!
Bishop staggered back from me, his eyes wide. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, stifling a scream.
“What did you—?” he began, but then his words broke off. There must have been something in my eyes, some shock and horror, that stopped him from asking what I’d seen.
“Stay here,” he said sharply, averting his gaze. “I’m going to search the club for Stephen.”
He knew I’d seen another memory of his past, but I didn’t think he knew which one in particular. Any memory, according to Bishop, was an invasion of his privacy, of his mind. And it could lead to jarring revelations.
He was absolutely right about that.
The next moment he was gone. My mind cleared a fraction at a time, but I trembled as I pressed up against the wall.
When I had the memory melds, it was as if I was Bishop. I saw what he’d seen, I heard what he’d heard. I felt what he’d felt.
But it was different this time. Something had been very wrong with him.
Watching Kraven die in that memory had shaken me more than anything I’d faced because the person who killed him was the one person I’d quickly come to care about more than anyone else.
And the more I learned about Bishop, the more shaken I became.
Someone who’d done something so horrible, who’d murdered his own brother in cold blood...how was he given the chance to become an angel?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone pass by outside the beaded curtain. My breath caught.
It was Stephen.
Without waiting another second or thinking about it first, I hurried after him, trying desperately to keep him in view through the mass of people.
I finally caught up to him by the stairs, catching his arm. “Stephen!”
He spun to face me. His face was pale, his eyes wild and unfocused. “What are you doing here?”
“I came here to find you.” I turned to frantically scan the club for Kraven and Bishop, but they were nowhere to be seen.
“Leave me alone.” He pulled away from my grip and started up the stairs. I followed after him. My head still swam from the memory meld, but there was no possible way I was going to let Stephen out of my sight now that I’d found him again.
Bishop was right about him being here. Now all I had to do was convince him to help me. I’d been so close at the mall yesterday, I knew it. I’d seen it in his eyes. Witnessing his fear about stasis had changed something inside me when it came to Stephen. For so long now I’d blamed him for my misfortune, for my hunger and troubles. I still did. But he wasn’t totally the villain I’d made him out to be—unrepentant and evil to the core. He was just somebody else in over his head, dealing with the ramifications of his own bad choices.
There had to be a way to help him, too. Being a gray had changed him, but not completely. I’d seen the way he looked at Jordan yesterday. How I knew he wanted to protect her, even if he chose to do so by being a standoffish, passive-aggressive jerk.
There was still good in Stephen. And I was going to give him another chance to prove it to me.
“Where are you going?” I called after him.
“I need to leave.”
“You don’t look so good.”
Stephen glanced over his shoulder as we ascended the stairs. It took all of my energy to keep up with his long strides. “I don’t feel so good.”
He was so pale, even the color of his eyes seemed faded. And he was shivering. The cold was getting worse for him, even worse than it was for me.
My throat closed. “You’re going into stasis.”
He didn’t answer, instead quickening his steps. When we reached the lobby, I didn’t have time to get my coat out of the coat check. If I did, I knew I’d lose him. Instead, I emerged with him through the doors into the night, only the thin cotton of my shirt to protect me from the chill. It would have to be enough.
He walked so fast I had to literally run to keep up with him. “You can’t just keep ignoring me. Please, Stephen. You need to help me. You know you do.”
Finally, he stopped walking and turned to face me when we’d gone about a block from the club. His expression was bleak. “It’s too late, Samantha.”
I shivered, and crossed my arms tightly over my chest to try to stay warm. “I know you’re scared. If you help me, I can help you, too.”
“You think so? Afraid not. Nobody can help me. And nobody can help you, either.”
His words were like a slap—which was how he’d meant them. He was lashing out at me because he felt so desperate and alone. But I wouldn’t let myself be put off that easily. Not tonight. “You can’t lose hope.”
He laughed, a dry and humorless sound that sent a fresh chill down my spine. “Natalie promised me a lot of things when she was still alive. She said it was going to be great. That nothing would get in our way. That we’d be together forever. I believed her. Mostly.”
Empathy welled inside me. He’d been played by my aunt like a fool. She’d used him any way she could. “Don’t tell me you were in love with her.”
“Hardly.” He glared at me. “Don’t you know by now, Samantha? I’m an opportunist, always have been. Natalie represented an opportunity for me to be more than what I was. I took it. In fact, I jumped at it, sacrificing everything in the process. I deserve this as my punishment.”
“You’re not that bad.”
That earned another laugh that echoed coldly off the dark buildings surrounding us. “No, I’m worse.”
“You broke up with Jordan to save her. That proves to me that there’s still something inside you that gives a damn.”
His laugh broke off and he sent a look at me so sharp that it almost cut. “You don’t know anything about what happened with Jordan.”
He started walking again, but I scooted around to block his path. The two of us were momentarily lit up by a set of headlights from a car turning the corner. It only showed me how pale Stephen was. And that even though he shivered from the cold, there was also a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He looked sick.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe I’m just guessing. But I saw something in your eyes at the mall. You don’t like hurting her. I’m not saying I get it. I mean, to me Jordan’s a total bitch. But maybe down deep—maybe with you—she was different. Maybe she saw the real you, and vice versa. Maybe it was true love.”
“Shut up.” His voice shook. “It’s over—everything is. I’m going into stasis and right now I need to be anywhere but here.”
When he moved again, I literally shoved him back a step. “Stop. Just stop. My friends...they can help you. I’m serious.”
He didn’t look at me, he looked at the ground by my feet. “Yeah, right. They can help by putting a knife through my heart.” He rubbed his forehead as if his head ached. “I still have just enough self-preservation to want to crawl off somewhere private if I’m going to die tonight. I don’t w
ant to be killed. If that makes me a coward, then fine. I’m a damn coward.”
With that, he pushed me out of the way.
“Stephen, don’t go. Please.” My voice caught.
He looked over his shoulder at me, his face shadowed by the small amount of light from the nearby streetlamp. “I’m sorry, Samantha. I’m sorry I did what Natalie told me to do. I shouldn’t have taken your soul.”
My eyes burned. “You can make it up to me by giving it back. Simple.”
“Nothing’s simple anymore. For me or for you.”
Regular reasoning wasn’t working. I needed to up my game. “What do you want? Protection from my friends? I’ve already asked them not to hurt you. They won’t.”
“Sure, they won’t.”
“What else do you want?”
“Bargaining, Samantha?” A glimmer of a cold smile played at his lips. “Has it really come to that?” Then the smile died. “I know what this is. You’re trying to slow me down so your buddies can catch up. Aren’t you?”
“No, I came after you by myself. Nobody else saw you.”
There was no more patience in his gaze. “Goodbye, Samantha.”
I clutched onto his arm, digging my fingernails in hard. “You’d really walk away, just like that? I guess I was wrong about you. You really are a selfish asshole.”
He spun to face me, grabbing the front of my shirt and yanking me forward. My anger fell away, replaced by fear. He had nothing to lose right now. And there was nothing friendly or kind in his eyes. Instead, all I saw was endless pain. “You’re right. I am a selfish asshole. But you were also right about Jordan. I love her and don’t want to hurt her. She’ll be better off when I’m dead. Because this stasis? I hope like hell it kills me tonight. I don’t know what I’d turn into if it doesn’t.”
He shoved me back so hard that I fell to the ground, twisting my ankle. As I scrambled to get back to my feet, he started running away.
I tried to pursue, but white-hot pain shot through my ankle. I whimpered out loud, limping as fast as I could in the direction he’d fled. I got as far as the next block before I realized he was nowhere to be seen.