The Timekeeper (14 page)

“You fucking bitch, you don’t know what you’re doing.” I slammed my foot on his chest, digging the thick heel into his sternum, waving my knife in his face.

“Now, now, Zamir. That’s no way to talk to a lady. I don’t care who sent you, but tell them the next time they come after me, they need to send an Angel with a little less sex appeal and a tad more back up.” I leaned down and pushed a quick passionate kiss on his lips, smirking as I stood and removed my heel from his torso
.

Zamir was a sick fuck of a heavenly being, but I found myself captivated by him. Must’ve been my Demon blood calling his Angel
-
ness. Shit worked like a magic magnet. I tended to be attracted to Angels with bad attitudes, and the more demented the better.

He rolled away, pushing himself up, dodging punches as he raced his way toward Asher. Dalvin and Darius were still working him over, as the small Zamir zipped in to rescue him, dragging him out of the melee. They ran down the alleyway, but we didn’t bother to follow, no one saw the point. They would disappear whenever they found cover from prying human eyes. Always the problem with Angels; damn difficult to track down once they vanished.

“Ilana, are you alright?” I glanced at Darius and nodded.

I surveyed him as he lurched toward me
.
He managed to land himself a slight limp, but no blood. Asher probably gave him a good kick to the side, not that he’d ever fess up to the Angel got a hit in. Unless Darius was bleeding to death
,
or a limb went missing, the man wouldn’t admit injury. He seemed otherwise unscathed, but I’d probably catch him attempting to hide bruises later
.
He wrapped his arms around me and I folded myself into his chest.

“I’m okay
.
Although
,
I’d like to know what’s up with Angels trying to kill me. That fucker, Zamir, pulled a knife on me and to make it worse, he licked me. Who does that? Yuck.” Darius nodded, looking me over to ensure I didn’t receive any obvious injuries
.

“I saw them following you from the house, so I decided I couldn’t miss the opportunity to let out a little aggression. I called Dal and Echo on the way down. Wait, did you say he licked you?” I rolled my eyes. Thank god for his quick thinking, even if he wasn’t the best listener.

“I think I’m getting to old for this. Seriously, I’m putting in for early retirement.”

Darius chuckled, “Good luck with that sweetheart. But really, he licked you? Like stuck his tongue on your skin?” I started to laugh
.

“
Evet
, geez. He placed his slimy tongue on the side of my neck and ran it up to my ear while he sniffed me. I need a shower.” Darius stopped moving
.

“I swear, Princess, I will yank the bastard’s tongue out of his head.” I smiled at him, patting his arm.

“That’s nice dear, just don’t bring it home with you. Okay?” Echo laughed her ass off and Dalvin glared at her like she’d gone mad. When she finally calmed down she turned to me.

“You’re having a bad day, sister. Let’s get you inside and working, and everything will be better when we forget all about this.” Echo walked me toward the building, where my mother had been standing for quite sometime, waiting at the door.

Great, how much of the scuffle she had seen? Probably enough I’d hear about it for the rest of the morning.

“Where’s Darius is off to?” I asked Echo.

She sighed, “In addition to avoiding your mother while you try and explain the fray she’d just witnessed, he’s off to talk to Dexter
.
You didn’t hear anything from me. Pretend you don’t have a clue okay? He doesn’t want to stress you out, but he told us what’s going on. He’s serious about you taking Dexter as a husband. I don’t understand why you aren’t ecstatic when it comes to this? Dexter makes you simply blissful, he always has.” I shook my head
.
I glanced up as we approached my mother, she did not look happy.

“Young ladies, I believe we already had a talk about your drug dealing friends coming to the store. This is completely unacceptable. I thought you were done with criminals, Ilana.” I peeked sheepishly up at Mom.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Deranged renegade Angels nearly killed me, and she wanted to harass me about drug dealers. Un-fucking-believable.

“Mom, I don’t know those guys. Seriously, I’ve never seen them before today.” She shook her head at me with a disgusted look, and I looked at the ceiling.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Ilana Rose. You can’t expect me to believe you don’t have anything to do with those thugs, not with your background of hanging out with shady characters.” She turned away from me.

“Echo, I have to run some errands and I’ve got a couple of appointments I need to get to. Do you think you can keep an eye on the store
,
and my daughter for the rest of the day? While you’re at it, the two of you can process the Internet orders and I expect all of them to be filled by the time FedEx gets here.”

Echo nodded, “Of course, ma’am. Sure thing.”

My mother stormed out of the building and left us alone, standing in the middle of the stock room. I turned to Echo
.

“I can’t believe she blamed me for being attacked, what kind of bullshit is that?” She started to laugh
.

“Yeah, it’s a little fucked up.” I grinned at her, threatening to toss a bar of soap at her
.

“Thanks for backing me up with her, I appreciate the effort.” She put her hands up in the air, waving me off
.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Your mom scares the shit out of me, okay. She’s almost as scary as Cassandra, which is seriously impressive.” We both broke into hysterics and I put the bar of soap down.

I grabbed the stack of orders my mom printed out before she left and began pulling boxes out, setting them on the shipping counter.

“So are you gonna tell me about what my husband’s up to, or am I going to have to beat it out of you? I can find a sock, and we have plenty of soap.” Echo shook her head, looking over the packing lists and laughing.

“You can keep your socks and bars to yourself, thanks. The only thing I’m going to say about the whole things is that I can’t believe you are still having an affair with Dexter Sloan. I’m mean, Dex is a good guy and all, but he’s a fucking Vamp. You guys grew up together, I get that, but really?” Echo wasn’t fond of Vampires, most Djinn weren’t.

It was a prejudice that had been bread into the lower classes, but she still managed to tolerate them
.
Regardless, I didn’t need to justify my relationship with Dexter to her, or to anyone else.

“What do you want me to say, Echo? I will not explain my affair to you. I love him, we’ve been seeing each other since shortly after I found out Zev cheated on me with my half-sister Nicolette, and that’s all the explanation you’re going to get out of me.” I started pulling orders out of the wrapped soap bins, and refused to look at her. I didn’t appreciate her opinion of my dealings. None of it was her business
.

“I’m sorry. I’m not judging you, Princess. I’m well aware you love Azul and Dexter, equally but for different reasons. Each one of them gives you something the other can’t. I guess I’m a little jealous. You get to take on as many husbands as you want, I don’t get that option. You’re a Princess, that’s our race’s custom, and your birthright.”

I guffawed, “Trust me, my life’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” I shook my head, trying to forget the conversation I had with Darius this morning.

“Listen, Echo, this isn’t something I asked for. My naïve, but original intentions were for Zev to be the one and only husband I would marry. We planned Amelia and he changed while I was pregnant. I tricked myself into believing after she was born he would take a more serious interest in me again
.
I thought he was cheating on me because he didn’t find me attractive in my knocked up state, but he couldn’t seem to keep it in his pants even afterward
.
” I sighed and leaned against the shipping counter.

“Rather than being a widow, I chose to stay married to the bastard. The only conciliation I got was banishing him from the kingdom
,
instead of having him executed. Losing myself in Dexter was the one thing that helped me though the disaster.” I tossed some bubble wrapped soap in a box.

“Azazel never approved of Dexter, and wouldn’t allow the marriage. It wasn’t until I was much older
,
and I’d met Azul that I realized I had the power to disregard anything and everything my father said. If it hadn’t been for Dexter marrying someone else, I’d have married him in a heartbeat. I can take as many husbands as I want, preferably nothing less than three, but Dexter can’t have more than one wife. Had I been conscious of her impending death, I would’ve waited for him. We wouldn’t be having this conversation, and Azul would be my third husband, and not my second.” I rubbed my temples
.
I was starting to get a headache.

“You’ve been through a lot. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Echo mumbled as she turned sheepishly away from me. I nodded, she was right
.
She should’ve minded her own damn business.

“Let’s just get to packing some soap, okay. My husband is going to do whatever he thinks he needs to do. I’ve got no intensions of stop him. I give up trying. As long as he doesn’t do anything to Dex, I’m okay.” I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to my Vamp. She nodded and we started packing boxes again
.

A minute or two later, the second set of Angels for the day walked through the door. Gideon, followed by Chester, strolled into the store like they might actually be paying customers. Not interested in the least with playing with these two, and I glanced at Echo, who seemed to be eye-fucking Gideon with a ferociousness she rarely displayed. Yeah, Gideon was just her type.

I never would understand her obsession. Sure, the angelic natured are attractive; some of them could fun, but to be completely obsessed with any Angel who walked in bordered ridiculous. Echo wasn’t wired right.

“Gideon, Chester, I’m not in the mood to deal with you this instant, or ever. I’ve had enough of Angels today, no offense.” They peeked at each other
.
Obviously clueless as to what I was talking about. I had no intentions of explaining myself to them either. Echo saddled up next to Gideon, making sure he was well aware of her interest in him. He only smiled at her quickly, and turned back at me.

“I take it you still haven’t considered helping us track down the brothers.”

I sneered at him, “No, Gideon I haven’t, because I have no idea where they are. If you don’t mind, I’ve had an awful day and I’m not interested in hashing out the location of two brothers, which I have not seen in almost thirty years. All of which I’ve already told you.” He gave me a skeptical look, as if he smelled Neal’s scent on my soul. Gideon turned to leave, but we both knew he’d be back. Fucking Angels.

“Wait, Gideon, why do you want the two of them anyway?” Echo questioned. She needed an excuse to talk to the gorgeous creature, and she found one. He grinned at her
.

“Well, first they put them on trial, which is absolutely pointless
.
They only send trackers like us after you if they know you’re guilty
.
Then they will execute them. The process is quick, takes a couple of days, but tracking Angels down who don’t want to be found, now that’s the time consuming part.” Echo had a horrified look on her face. She was hung up on the length of time it took for execution.

Merciful creatures my ass.

I couldn’t figure out why she bothered asking, I could’ve told her what their intentions were when they finally got a hold of the two renegades. We observed Gideon and Chester leave the store, pass the plate glass windows and out of sight.

“Make sense now? Why I don’t know anything about their whereabouts? I won’t stand for either of their deaths. Those are my Angels, and I intend to keep them in one piece.” She glanced at me, still terrified something would happen to them.

“Don’t worry, they aren’t going to find them. I’m the only one who knows where they are. I’ve got no intention of telling those two anything. Echo, pull your head out of your skinny little ass and let’s get this day over with. FedEx is going to be here any moment to pick up these boxes and we aren’t nearly done with them.” I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye as she slowly reached for another packing slip and started back to work.

Nothing could prepare a person to hear the ugly truth about how Angels dealt with deserters. Everyone expected them to be kind and loving entities, but the reality of the race was ruthless and cold
-
blooded. They didn’t understand the concept of forgiveness, they never would.

Angels were God’s army, not the cherub-like treasures Hallmark portrays. In fact, the movie Legion had them pegged
,
distorted and hateful minions, hell
-
bent in maintaining their master’s happiness. It was a wonder any of them ever thought for themselves. At least us Demons didn’t hide behind Hallmark bullshit and propaganda
.