Devil's Paw (Imp Book 4) (27 page)

“It’s wrong what you do to him. You know exactly where his weaknesses are, where he is lonely and empty. One day he’ll look back and wish he’d been like his own kind, partnered with an equal, had children, had someone to grow old with.”

I looked down at his hands, white knuckled on my biceps. He was right. I’d thought those same thoughts many times, but been too selfish to let Wyatt go. But now? Wyatt was free to make his own choices, whether it was to stay with me or choose someone else. I loved him. I’d always love him, no matter what he chose. And I knew he felt the same. Whether our relationship cooled, changed or deepened into something different, he’d always remain important to me as long as I lived.

“I swear to you that I will not Own him. I will not force him to remain with me. If he asks to leave, wants to end our relationship, I will allow him to do so.”

I felt the weight of his stare. It pressed on me, urging me to more. Fuck him. Not doing it.

“Humans make such poor choices,” he said softly. “Their lives are short, and their vision even shorter. Their souls are so intertwined with their physical beings that they act from emotion, from what they feel at the moment. Pain, euphoria, sadness. These things unduly influence them. It is not right to engage them in emotional relationships when they don’t fully understand what they do.”

“I love Wyatt. I’m not taking advantage of him. This isn’t one–sided, this thing between us.”

He continued to press, wanting more. We stood in silence, and I finally made myself look up and meet his eyes. They looked normal, human. Dark, dark eyes. They didn’t command. They weren’t forceful. They had sadness, a gentle pleading in them. Very gentle. As if he knew he was asking for so much more than he could ever expect me to give.

“Why do you care?” I asked, bewildered. “He’s human. You don’t even like him. You’re not asking for this out of any concern for him.”

The angel frowned. “All humans are important. Every one. It doesn’t matter about my fallible personal feelings toward any one of them. They all deserve grace.”

“Bullshit. Let me tell you a story about a girl, because there was no grace for her. When she was eight, Daddy left and never came back.” I choked a bit, because I had pulled up all the feelings and emotions of Samantha Martin. They were powerful feelings.

“She continually attached herself to boys who would hurt her and abandon her because, if her love could be strong enough to make them stay, maybe her love was finally strong enough to bring her Daddy back. At sixteen, she was a drug addict runaway, dating a string of junkies until she finally caught the attention of a local two–bit dealer. He said he loved her, said he needed her, and she thought finally her love would save them both. Instead, he ran out of drugs and begged her to prostitute herself to his supplier for more. If she loved him, he argued, she’d help him, save him. She did it, but he left her there, and it wasn’t just the supplier; it was him plus five dealers, and various junkies. They gang raped her, beat her, cut her, left her lying in blood and semen while they went out. She knew they’d do it again when they got back. And again, and again, until they killed her. She’d given up hope, lost her faith in everyone, including herself. She was going to die, alone, unloved, a failure at the one thing she’d needed to do in her life.”

I paused, ensuring that the angel truly understood the agony this human girl had suffered, the sheer hopelessness of her life.

“That’s where I found her. I promised her freedom, I promised her that the men that did this to her would die fearing her, I promised her an eternity where no one takes her love and gives pain in return.

“Did any angel notice her? Bother to do anything to help her? Relieve her suffering? Bring her some remembrance of past happiness?”

He stared at me, his dark eyes reflecting my pain, my outrage. Fucking angels with their talk of grace and redemption. It was easy for them to denigrate the sins of humanity but when did they ever bother to
help?

“She was one of the fortunate ones. There are a million worse off than her, starving, diseased, tortured souls who have no hope left at all. Wyatt is happy, healthy, enjoying his life. Go save those millions. Go feed the hungry, smite the tyrants, cure AIDS. Leave Wyatt alone. Leave me and the things I love alone.”

“We’ve interfered enough in the lives of humans; both angels and demons.” His voice was soft, sad. “If I could turn back time, undo the things that were done, I would jump at the chance. I’d make different choices.”

“Make different choices in regards to granting humans the gifts of Aaru, or in fighting the demon wars?” I asked.

He released my arms and traced a soft finger along my cheek. “Humans. For as much as I long to have my brother by my side again, I couldn’t bear to think I might have never known you had things been different.”

All the anger fell away from me. The most horrible event in his entire life, and yet he’d suffer through it to know me. It was a heady thought.

“I long for your redemption, little Cockroach, but I think it is I who has already been redeemed.”

I leaned against him, touching him both with my physical and my spirit self. I knew he was attracted to me, that we were bound together, but this was sounding very much like a declaration of some sort.

“I love Wyatt. Love him enough to give him space and time to reconnect with his sisters and deal with all the supernatural shit he’s faced this past year. I’ll honor his decisions, but he’s helped make me the demon I am today. And if you have any care for me, you’ll acknowledge the part he has played in my life and trust that I’ll respect his wishes.”

The angel sighed, cupping my face in his hands. “Fair enough.”

Then he kissed me. I was so shocked that I just stood there like a statue.

For a being that shunned physical sensation, he was a damned good kisser. Heat tore through me like a flare, consolidating in low, increasingly moist places as the first gentle touch of his lips grew demanding. His fingers skimmed along my jaw and down my neck; his tongue brushed mine, stinging me with sharp needles. Need spasmed through me, and my shock vanished, replaced with images of me splayed across the bed naked with his glorious tongue tasting me everywhere. I acted on that image, pulling my mouth away and arching my neck in invitation. Surprisingly, he went for it, nipping down the sensitive flesh with his pointed teeth, sweeping his hands down my arms to my waist and yanking me against him.

Oh my. I was thrilled to find he’d completely ignored my advice from the airport. When this angel fell, he evidently fell hard. And big. Was he really willing to take this all the way?

As he moved his mouth moved back up to claim my lips once again, his spirit self equally busy in its exploration of my personal energy. I was overloaded with sensations, physical and otherwise. My spirit leapt to his, merging as much as I dared while still remaining partially within my form.

“Slow down,” he murmured, allowing me a moment for breath. “Patience.”

I had no patience, especially with his spirit lighting me up, his lips on mine, his hands busy underneath my shirt, and the promise of more, pressing very firmly against my stomach. I felt the sharp bite of his teeth against my lower lip. Where the fuck had he learned all this? He continued, doing things with his mouth that I never would have imagined. If he kept this up much longer, I was going to come. Orgasm from kissing and angel fucking. I’d never be the same.

I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye.

“Ancient Revered One, I …” The words trailed off into a squeak.

Whoever that was, I was going to fucking kill him.

Gregory continued to kiss me for a few moments, giving me one last caress before lifting his head to look down at me, ignoring the gate guardian standing open–mouthed a few feet away.

“Make him go away,” I whispered. Or let him stay. I really didn’t care if he watched, I just wanted to continue on down this road we were on.

My angel chuckled and kissed the tip of my nose. “Patience. We have a killer to catch, and all of eternity to wallow in sin with each other.”

I caught my breath at the implication. An eternity with him. . .and sin.

He drew me close, pressed against his chest with one hand buried in my hair, rubbing my scalp and smoothing the brown locks. I was breathless. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Visions of a future with him bloomed before me, lighting me up with sensation and emotion. My angel. Mine.

“Nisroc, stay clear of the gate. We’ll handle this one.”

The guardian nodded, shooting me a terrified look from the corner of his eyes before he disappeared.

Gregory gave me a brief, hard kiss, digging his hands deeper into my hair. “Dress for wilderness hiking, little Cockroach. The Juneau gate is at Devil’s Paw.”

~23~

W
ilderness hiking, my ass. I’d packed for Seattle in summer, not tromping across an ice field. The best I could come up with was a plaid, flannel shirt that I’d borrowed from Gina to wear over my tank top, and jeans. I was going to fucking freeze. Stupid fucking Alaska. I should be home by the pool, in a bathing suit, with beer and hot wings, and a naked Wyatt rubbing oil on my body. Yeah.

But I wasn’t. I was in Alaska, and I was going to be hiking through the Juneau ice fields to Devil’s Paw. The serendipity of the name didn’t escape me.

The easy method of getting there would have involved a helicopter dropping us off in the ice fields less than a half–day’s hike to the mountain. Actually, the easy way would be to have Gregory just gate me there, right on top of the fucking mountain. Instead, we’d taken a helicopter up to Taku Inlet, then a boat along the river to Twin Glacier Lake. The river went deep through the mountains, all the way into Canada, but it would have put us too far south on a mountain range with nearly impassable vertical cliffs. Looking up at the impressive peaks ten miles away from our spot on the glacier, I longed to manifest wings and just fly there. I’ll bet the views were spectacular from some of those heights.

“Come on, Cockroach. We’ve got a long hike.”

Yeah, a twelve–hour hike. Devil’s Paw was only fifteen or so miles as the crow flew, but we weren’t flying, and depending on the condition of the ice field, our trip would be agonizingly slow. I wasn’t sure how Raim planned to get up there. At least I was fairly certain we were ahead of him.

“Why Devil’s Paw?” I asked, struggling along the lumpy surface of the glacier. At its base, the ice ended in huge waves. I could clearly see both sides where the ice terminated and cedars lined the edges. Rocks protruded from the line of trees, splashed like paint with lichen patches. Juneau was a coastal rainforest with lush foliage, even at this northern latitude, but here, vegetation was more limited. Even so, in small sheltered areas that faced south, I could see a burst of color — heather and lupine in summer bloom. It was such an incongruity against the thick ice.

“You’ll see.” I could hear the gentle amusement in his voice. “I like Devil’s Paw. It reminds me of Aaru in some ways.”

Great. I fucking hated Aaru. Devil’s Paw was the highest peak in the Juneau ice field area at 8584 feet. The ice field itself rose 4200 feet about the city of Juneau, making the impressive mountains in the distance seem deceptively mid–sized.

“This is just as stupid as the gate two and a half miles up in the air. It’s on the top of a jagged mountain peak. Anyone who comes through it is going to face a three–thousand–foot drop, a treacherous climb down, then a frozen wilderness hike for days into Juneau.”

“Exactly. When we made them, millions of years ago, all the gates were this remote. The landscape has changed as the humans have taken over the planet. Not many gates are as we originally designed.”

I huffed beside him, out of breath. He didn’t seem to have any problems hiking this rough terrain.

“I thought you made them so the elves could come back if they wanted to? No elf is going to want to step through a gate only to plunge to his or her death.”

He looked back at me, a strange smile on his face. “They’ll manage. Maybe you demons can post a warning sign, or provide climbing gear on your side of the gate.”

I snorted and conserved further breath for climbing.

The twin bands of ice that descended to this lake fronted the massive Taku glacier, which backed against the enormous Juneau ice field. Sections of the ice had suffered summer melt — ablation. The snow covering had vanished, leaving the brownish–blue lumps of ice, and small pockets of brilliant royal–blue pools of water. Summer travel across the ice field would be hazardous. Snow bridges hid deep crevasses. Water flowed above and below the ice, creating areas of instability. Rock falls and avalanches were a reality, as were sudden storms and whiteout conditions. I really wanted to be on a beach in Aruba. Or by my pool. Or eating seal meat in Juneau.

A mile into our hike, I was ready to keel over. “Holy fuck,” I gasped. “It’s June, and there’s ice and snow everywhere. At this rate, it’s going to take us six months to get to that gate. Not that we need to hurry. Raim will never make it. He’ll be frozen into the ice field, or up to his ears in snow.”

Gregory plodded on ahead. I could tell he was slowing down to keep me from falling even further behind him.

“What were you guys thinking? Who the fuck puts a gate to Hel up here? What next? Are you going to shut down the one in Columbia Mall and stick it in Antarctica, twenty feet under the ice? Close Seattle and put it in the middle of an active volcano?”

Gregory paused at the top of the glacier, and I hustled to join him. Once there, I took a sharp breath as I looked over the vast stretch of white before me. Ice field was a gross understatement. The white went on forever, up and down as it met an equally white sky. Wisps of fog caressed the ground. In the distance, storm clouds hovered, trapped in the embrace of knife–like peaks. The only break in the field of white was the occasional jagged black rock rising like a monolith to the sky. I suddenly saw the comparison with Aaru. Cold and impersonal, a blank canvas of monochrome where any color or sound would be amplified. I shivered, feeling both the beauty and the moral ambiguity of nature at its core.