Bitter Sweet Love (5 page)

Chapter Nine

The first thing I learned about New York City was that people were everywhere—in elevators, on the sidewalks, in the streets and inside all the shops. I’d never been around so many at once, and while they knew that Wardens existed, none of them seemed to notice that we were any different—at least those who didn’t look too closely at our eyes. The color was too pale to be human, and in my small town, everyone noticed.

But not here.

Everyone was too busy trying to get to wherever it was they were going, or they were enthralled with the sights, much as I was.

I couldn’t stop staring up and I knew everything about me screamed tourist, but the heights of the buildings, and the sheer number of them, was truly astonishing. And then there were all the flashing signs and bright lights.

“Hungry?” Dez asked.

“Yes.” I placed a hand on my belly. We’d walked so many blocks I’d lost count. “You?”

“Always. How about some authentic New York pizza?”

A grin split my lips. Another block down, he spied a pizza shop right in the middle of Times Square. Pictures of all the famous patrons lined their walls, from athletes to politicians. We waited in line and ordered, then found an empty table in the back.

Dez watched me as I bit into the pizza and moaned. The taste—it was nothing like the pizza back home; the cheese, spices and crust.

His dark auburn brows lifted. “Don’t ever stop eating if you’re going to make sounds like that.”

I almost choked on my slice, flushing. “It tastes good!”

He laughed. “I can tell.”

Grinning, I watched him under my lashes. For someone so large, he had such delicate eating habits. He cut each slice into bite-size pieces while I shoved half the thing in my mouth and probably ended up with sauce all over my chin. Of course, I finished before him since I inhaled the pizza. As he savored each bite, I took the time to people watch.

Around humans I tended to feel as if I lacked worldly knowledge, especially in a place like this where there were so many people, all of them so very different looking. I hadn’t even had a human friend; the closest I came was the lady who worked at the ice-cream parlor. I wanted one, probably much like humans wanted a puppy, but my father was wary of growing too close to them.

After we’d left to investigate Times Square and Broadway, I was reminded of why my father was so cautious. On the storefront of a cute Italian eatery was a sign that boldly read WARDENS ARE NOT WELCOME. Underneath that was scrawled WE SERVE ONLY GOD’S CHILDREN.

I sucked in a shrill breath, unsettled. These were the kind of people that thought we were the Devil incarnate; the kind who believed we were monsters, no matter how much good we did. As sheltered as the other females and I were, we’d only heard of such bigotry but never actually seen it in real life.

“Hey,” Dez said, reaching down between us and clasping my hand in his. “You okay?”

I hadn’t realized I’d stopped until then. “I just don’t understand.”

His gaze followed mine. “Honestly? In a city like this, I’m kind of surprised, but it’s just one place out of
thousands
. And there’s no point in even trying to figure it out. They’re the ones who don’t understand. They don’t know what’s really out there.” He tugged on my hand. “Come on, there’s a lot to see.”

I let him pull me away. “It’s just—”

I stopped again as a cold, sharp series of tingles exploded between my shoulder blades. I turned before Dez said anything, sensing a nearby demon. My gaze sought it out among the crowds of humans hurrying up and down the packed sidewalk.

The demon had walked out of the eatery—the very one that supposedly only served “God’s children.” A laugh bubbled up my throat but got stuck. He didn’t look much older than me, and to human eyes, he no doubt appeared rather harmless as he stopped beside a red-and-white fire hydrant. His dark hair was cropped close and his profile revealed angular features. A stud in his right nostril glinted in the sunlight.

“A Fiend,” Dez said, his hand tightening around mine.

Although Fiends were the most common class of demons topside, I’d never seen one. Curiosity rose swiftly as I watched the demon. “He’s so... bold.”

“Of course. He knows we can’t do anything among humans. If I made a move, it would look as if I attacked one of their own.”

And that wouldn’t be good.

The demon looked as though he was about to catch a cab, except he glanced over his shoulder and his dark eyes met mine. An odd light glinted off them. I sucked in a breath, muscles tensing in preparation for an all-out attack.

Dez raised his free hand, flipping the demon off.

An impish sort of grin crossed the demon’s face in response and he reached down, brushing his fingers along the top of the fire hydrant. With a wink, he turned his back on us and pushed off the sidewalk, darting between taxis and work vans.

“Oh, no,” Dez murmured, stepping back as he shoved me behind him.

My heart jumped. “What?”

Before Dez could respond, the top of the hydrant blew with a bang. Water erupted, streaming high in the air. Another loud pop cracked farther down the street, and then another and another. Water jetted into the air as far as I could see.

I squealed as cold liquid rained down on us, the sound lost in the surprised shouts of pedestrians. Within seconds, I was drenched, as was almost everyone nearby. Traffic ground to a halt as water poured into the streets. Metal crunched. A taxi smacked into the back of another, resulting in a chain reaction of epic proportion.

A cabbie jumped out, fist in the air. “What the hell? You hit my car!”

“You stopped!” the other cabbie screamed. “You stupid mother—”

His words were cut off by blaring horns. Absolute pandemonium broke out, and the whole time, the Fiend was across the street, loitering on the curb, unaffected by the downpour. He was laughing.

Soaking wet, Dez pulled on my arm. “Let’s go!”

We ran, dodging people as we were pelted by water. Several blocks down, we finally reached a somewhat dry area. Stopping, I looked over my shoulder. Times Square was flooded.

“Dear God,” I murmured. No one appeared to be injured. If anything, what the demon had done was merely create a huge inconvenience, and for some really messed-up reason, I was smiling as I turned back to Dez.

He placed his warm hands on my cheeks, smoothing the wet hair out of my face. “Are you okay?” he asked, his expression taut.

I laughed, and he cocked his head to the side. “I’m fine. I can’t help it,” I said, grasping his wrists. “That was funny.”

“Only you would find that mess funny.”

“Whatever.” I rose, using his arms to brace myself. Adrenaline was kicking through my veins. Maybe that was why I did what I did next. Or maybe it was because I’d been wanting him to kiss me again since the last time our lips touched. Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips against his. On contact, he sucked in a deep breath. His lips were wet and firm and absolutely wonderful. I settled back on my feet, sliding my hands to where his tangled in my hair.

We stood there as a crowd gathered behind us, taking in the spectacle of the river that had taken over Times Square. People passed us by, and either we were invisible to them or they were oblivious to us in that moment. And there was no past between us in that second or future, there was just now—right now.

Dez’s eyes glowed with want. “I think I really like that demon.”

I laughed, thinking that must be a first. We reached for each other at the same time, so I don’t know who was holding whose hand, but the smile remained plastered on my face right up until it was late and we called it a night.

All the excitement exhausted me, but a different kind of weariness sprung alive when we stepped into the hotel room and my gaze fell to the bed. My heart rate tripped. We were going to be sleeping in that bed. Together. Just him and me. Us. Why I needed to run through the different ways of saying we were sleeping together was beyond me, but it still didn’t seem real.

Sleeping together in a room that was not in a houseful of others of our kind made everything seem so different, much more adult and intimate. As though we’d been playing at being grown-ups but not anymore.

I gathered up my sleep clothes and changed quickly. Part of me wanted to linger in the bathroom, but if I did, there was a good chance I’d crawl into the big tub and go to sleep.

When I returned to the main room, Dez was already in bed. A flash of heat shot through me as I stopped at the foot of the bed, twisting my fingers together.

Dez’s gaze slid my way. He’d changed while I’d been in the bathroom, wearing a white cotton shirt and hopefully bottoms to sleep in. His thick lashes shielded his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked, a smile in his voice.

I shrugged one shoulder.

He grinned. “Are you going to stand there and watch me sleep?”

My nose wrinkled. What did he think I was? A creeper? “No.”

“Then come on.” He patted the bed next to him. “I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

The kind of heat that flushed my face could fry eggs. Dez laughed deeply. “I’m kidding, Jas. Come on. I’m tired and I won’t be able to sleep without you getting in the bed.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he replied, yawning. “I’d be too worried about you being uncomfortable. And possibly staring at me while I sleep.”

“I’m not going to watch you sleep!”

“Whatever.”

I crept forward, until I was halfway up the big bed. He yawned again, casting his attention to the TV. Dragging in a deep breath, I grabbed the edge of the covers and slid in, settling on my back.

My chest was rising and falling so fast I swore I could see the blanket move.

“Good night, Jas.”

That was it? He was seriously going to sleep and wasn’t going to, I don’t know, test out this bed? I should’ve felt relieved, but... but I was disappointed in a way. “Good night.”

Seconds stretched into minutes and then Dez rolled onto his side, facing me. I held my breath. Another handful of seconds ticked by and then my body moved without my brain really catching up to it.

I rolled onto my side, and our gazes locked. There was a foot between us, but the space felt nonexistent as we stared at each other. In that moment I didn’t think I’d ever be able to sleep, but the beauty of his blue eyes and the slight smile on his lips was the last thing I saw before I slipped away.

Even dedicating a full day to touring New York City the following day, there was no way I could visit every museum, see every street I’d only read about or visit all the landmarks. We’d spent an ungodly amount of time in a toy store that seemed to have everything.

That night, together, we flew over the city to Ellis Island and then back to the Upper West Side, landing among the majestic statues of our kind and gazing down at the shimmering lights of the cars and street lamps below us.

I thought about that morning and felt warmth bubbling in my chest. When I woke up, I’d been half sprawled on him, my leg thrown over his and my head nestled in the crook of his shoulder. Unless he had dragged me over him in the middle of the night, which could be plausible, it had been me that had sought him out. He hadn’t seemed to mind, though. His arm had been secure around my waist.

Waking up like that had been... well, it had been more than nice.

“We can’t stay here long,” Dez said, stretching out his wings until they brushed over mine. I shivered at the intimate contact. “The clan is hunting and, while your father approved of this trip, I doubt he’d be happy to know you’re out here at night.”

I nodded as I leaned forward, my hands digging into the ledge. My senses were going off left and right. There were a lot of demons moving around down there, more than I imagined there would be.

“How many do you think are here?” I asked, glancing at Dez. “Demons, I mean?”

He tipped his head back, eyeing the stars. “Hundreds. Mostly Fiends like the one we saw yesterday. Some will be Posers and maybe an Infernal Ruler or two.” He stood, twisting his head from side to side, working out a kink in his neck. “They’ll come across an Upper Level demon at some point tonight. Whether they capture it is the question.”

Once a demon was captured, it was promptly sent back to hell or interrogated. I wasn’t supposed to know about these things as females were kept out of politics, but there’d been many times over the past, while suffering a never-ending case of boredom, that I had eavesdropped on my father’s conversations. I knew that there were locations in the city where demons were questioned, using tactics that had frozen the blood in my veins.

Tension radiated from Dez. It was palpable in the air. “You want to be out there, don’t you? Hunting?”

“It’s hard not to.” He glanced down at me, his eyes a deep blue and lips a dark gray. “It’s ingrained in us.”

So they said. I turned my attention back to the ground below. Carrying out my desire to hunt a demon here would be too risky. We could run into a clansman and that would bring this little trip to an end. Still, the idea of that many demons out when there wasn’t even a quarter as many Wardens to handle them was disturbing.

A cool wind tossed my hair and teased the thin membranes in my wings, causing them to flutter restlessly. “Why are there so many?”

“No one knows what went down in hell or why so many demons were cast out.” Dez turned and reached down, offering me his hand. “But the numbers are growing. They’re up to something—something big.”

I placed my hand in his, letting him pull me up. “But we’re going to stop them.”

He smiled as he hopped down on the rooftop and then placed his hand on my hip. I didn’t need the help, but he insisted and I let him. “Do you want to head back to the hotel or go down to the streets?”

It was late and I knew as the hours went by, a battle of sorts would take place in the streets and even in the skies. As badly as I wanted to be out here, I wasn’t stupid. A female Warden would end up being a demon magnet and getting Dez in major trouble. My desire to experience both a hunt and more of the city would have to wait.