Eve of Darkness (9 page)

That was why he was frustrated by his inability to be patient with Abel. His brother was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Alec couldn’t ignore him or forgive him. The grudge he carried was too deeply ingrained.

With a quick stride, he moved to the kitchen and opened the trash compactor. He unclenched his fist, releasing the destroyed apple to thud to the bottom of the lined basket. Sticky juice coated his fingers and he watched, detached, as it dripped. Drop after drop.

Eve made a small noise and he glanced at her. She stood nearby, flushed and bright eyed. Aroused.

Alec growled low in his throat. “Stay away from him.”

Her chin lifted. She looked prepared to argue, then she turned around and lifted to her tiptoes, pulling open a cupboard and reaching for a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream.

“If you’re looking for a buzz,” he bit out, “you won’t get one there.”

She paused midmovement.

“Your body doesn’t process alcohol—or any mind-altering substance—the same way it used to.”

Her hand fell as a fist into the counter. She faced him, her sloe eyes narrowing with flaring anger. “Are you saying I can’t get high?”

“You can orgasm from here to eternity,” he said roughly. “That high enough for you?”

“Fuck.”

“I’m happy to oblige.”

“Oh, shut up!” she snapped. “This is entirely
your
fault.”

“Is that all you’ve got?” he taunted, his blood hot and his temper high. He’d been punished for killing his brother
again,
which left Alec spoiling for a fight. Or a hard, raw screw. Since the latter was what had gotten Eve in trouble in the first place, he would be better off settling for the former. “Your life just blew up in your face and ‘shut up’ is the best you can do?”

Her fists clenched, and he felt a surge of satisfaction. If she was pissed off at him, she wouldn’t be thinking about Abel.

“I don’t know,” she retorted. “I’m feeling like a superhero. I might be able to kick your naked ass. Maybe we’d both feel better if I did.”

Alec laughed and moved to the sink to wash his hands. “You can say that after watching me kill a man? You’ve got balls, angel. Thank God, ’cause you’ll need ’em.”

“Don’t make light of this, Alec.”

Turning off the tap, he crossed over to her. His hips pinned her to the cupboard while his wet hands caressed her cheeks. “I’m not.”

“I feel like I’ve lost my mind.”

“You haven’t lost anything. You’re still the same smart, sexy woman I remember.”

“I wasn’t a woman then,” she grumbled.

He smoothed her eyebrows and followed the curve of her cheekbones. “You gonna argue with me about that, too?”

Eve sighed and rested her cheek into his palm. “You killed him.”

“Yeah.”

“Explain that to me.” Her dark eyes gazed up at him with a mixture of revulsion and wary fascination. “He said it wasn’t the first time.”

“‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” he recited softly.

Eve blinked up at him, a frown marring the beauty of her face. “You’re going to quote scripture at a time like . . .”

As her voice faded, Alec watched her confusion turn into a slowly dawning comprehension. She had never been able to hide anything from him, but she’d have to learn to don a poker face now. Infernals would take advantage of any perceived weakness.

“The Mark of Cain,” she whispered. “Alec
Cain
.”

“I know it sounds fantastical,” he began tightly.

“I believe you.” She made an impatient gesture with her hand and barked a little laugh. “I’m not even all that surprised. Not after the last week.

“Seven full days. Shit . . . I suppose that’s not a coincidence.”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.”

“What’s going on?” Her hand covered the spot on her arm where the mark rested. “What does this mean?”

“It’s a calling, angel. A—”

“I thought it was a punishment.”

“It serves that purpose, too.”

The way she bit her lower lip was an added sign of her distress, but the inner core of steel that had first attracted him to her did not fail. “Killing demons and fairies? Look at me, Alec. Do I look like I can do that?”

“You’re capable of anything that needs to be done. Far more so than most Marks.”

“
Most
Marks?” Her eyes widened. “There are
more
?”

“Thousands.”

“Jesus . . . Ow, damn it! This thing keeps burning.”

“Because you’re taking the Lord’s name in vain. You’ll have to get over that.”

Her mouth took on a mulish cast. “This is bullshit. Why me?
Why
?”

He exhaled harshly, his breath ruffling the hair atop her head. There was no way to deny his culpability in her downfall. But he wasn’t going to keep pointing it out.

“After my father was created,” he said instead, “the angels were commanded to prostrate before him, because he was created in the image of the Lord.”

Eve snorted. “God’s not at all full of himself, is he?”

“Watch it,” Alec warned, shaking her a little. “That mouth is going to get you in trouble.”

“That’s not the only troublesome part of me.”

“Some of the angels refused, insisting they were superior to man—”

“I have a tendency to agree with them.”

“Those who opposed God’s will were banished from the heavens. They fell to earth, where they mated with man and produced nephilim—half-angels who felt animosity toward the Lord. My family began to lose its position in the food chain.”

“So God drafted you?”

He laughed softly, humorlessly. “He said sin crouched at our door and it was my duty to master it. If I did well, I would be forgiven the death of my brother. If I didn’t, the Infernals would kill me.”

“Why doesn’t anyone know this part of the story?”

“It’s in the Bible, angel. The order of events is a bit skewed, but it’s mentioned.”

“So you had no choice.”

“We are always given a choice. It was my brother Seth who urged me to accept the offer. Since I had . . .
experience,
it made sense. In the end, I was grateful to be given a purpose. I’m good at what I do.”

“You have
another
brother?” She was clearly horrified by the thought.

“Thirty-two of them, and twenty-three sisters. Not all are still here on earth. Many have already ascended.”

“Oh, jeez . . .” She winced. “Your poor mother.”

“You have to consider that without television, radio, and sporting events, sex was the best form of entertainment there was.”

“I’d abstain, if it saved me from birthing that many kids.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he teased, achingly aware of her simmering state of arousal. Beneath Eve’s fear and confusion Alec scented the underlying spice of pure desire. Combined with the salt-tinged sea breeze coming through the open sliding glass door, it was potent and alluring. Eve, by nature, was a sexual creature. That proclivity would be enhanced now.

“Go back to your explanation,” she said. “You started killing the nephilim?”

“Yes, which angered Sammael.”

“Sammael?”

“Satan.”

“Oh, gotcha.”

“As the nephilim began to interbreed with other nephilim and the fallen, Sammael trained their off-spring, instilling in them a hatred for everything but him. I couldn’t handle the job alone. There were too many to kill, too many variations and mutations.”

“So God started marking other people?”

“Sinners. Giving them a chance to work off their offenses.”

“I’m not a sinner. And the whole setup is totally jacked. There are millions of religious zealots around the world who kill in his name every day, but why use them, right? That would make too much sense. Better to draft unwilling suckers like me. That’s more fun. Put the screws to them, watch them squirm.”

“Evangeline . . .” Alec’s stomach knotted. “You don’t have to like Him, but you’re going to have to respect His power.”

“What more can he do to me?” She pushed him away.

He briefly considered resisting, then thought his state of undress might give him an advantage. He was a hunter by nature, a predator. He knew he would have to approach her with caution. He would have to maneuver skillfully, bending and adjusting as necessary in order to keep Eve close. She would have to see him coming, because surprising her with a pounce would shatter her trust further, and she needed to trust him. Otherwise he had no hope of keeping her alive.

As if she sensed his intent, Eve shot him an arch glance and tightened the belt on her robe. “You went to see him like that? With it all hanging out?”

He shrugged. “It’s not as if I had a choice.”

“I can’t do this, Alec. You got me into this, you get me out of it.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.” She gave a little growl, like a pissed-off kitten. “Listen. I can’t watch horror movies. I get freaked out just walking alone through parking garages. Being the Bionic Woman isn’t going to change the fact that I don’t have it in my programming to kill things.”

“This is coming from the woman who met me at the door with a loaded gun?”

“Self-defense is a different story,” she argued, turning her back to him and guzzling her neglected coffee.

“He wouldn’t have marked you if you couldn’t handle it.”

Eve choked and glared at him over her shoulder. “We’re talking about the god who promised Moses he’d go to heaven if he worked like a dog and ruined his life, then at the last minute reneged on the deal.”

Alec’s jaw clenched as he linked his fingers behind his back. “I’m starting to think He picked you not because of
me,
but because of
you
. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Whatever. Your brother said I could have a trial. I want one.”

“It’s too late for that.”

A terrible stillness gripped her. “Because of what you did?”

He nodded, hating the unfamiliar feeling of dread weighting his gut. Eve had to trust him, implicitly. And now she had every reason not to. The battlefield was not a place to doubt the person watching your back. “I can’t help you if I’m on the other side of the world. I had to do what I did to stay with you.”

Eve walked away, departing the kitchen and heading down the hallway to her bedroom.

He followed. “Where are you going?”

“You’re not my favorite person right now.”

“Angel . . .”

Eve spun about in a flurry of ebony hair and blood-red silk. The movement was agile and inherently graceful. Sensual.

“I
will
get you out of this,” he said, struggling against his body’s reaction to the sight of her. He was so hard it hurt.

Her gaze dropped and her lips parted on a silent gasp. She pointed viciously at his erection. “Put that thing away! It’s gotten me into enough trouble as it is.”

She entered her room and slammed the door.

“My gear is in there,” he called after her, smiling.

A heartbeat later his jeans and shirt flew into the hall and hit him square in the chest.

“You prefer me to go commando?” he asked.

“Shut up and get dressed.” But there was a hitch in her voice that told him she wasn’t unaffected by the idea.

“We’re not done talking.”

“Give it a rest, okay?”

He moved to the guest room, his bare feet on the polished hardwood creating a mournful tempo. The extra bedroom bore the same sparse modern styling of the master bedroom and was nearly equal in size. Massive slabs of polished, lacquered pine hung from metal tracks on the ceiling and acted as doors for the floor-to-ceiling closets that occupied the entire right wall. The matching wood floor was littered with several fluffy white rugs cut in irregular shapes. A built-in system of shelves decorated the bottom half of the rear wall, while the top half was covered in black-and-white photos in silver frames.

The bed was to the left. It sat low to the ground and was quite large. A California king, Alec guessed. It was covered with a chocolate satin duvet and cream pillows with brown and rust-colored trim.

The sight of the perfectly made bed both lured and depressed him. He was exhausted. While Eve’s body had been changing and storing up energy, his had been drained by worry, guilt, and lack of sleep. If he had a choice, he’d be curled up with her, not fighting the urge to crash. Alone.

He was tired of being alone. Which added to the whole fucked-up situation he found himself in.

His desire to do what was best for Eve—get her life back—was in direct opposition to his long-held need to cease wandering. His mentorship gave him the opportunity, for the first time, to prove that he could play well with others.

Finally, after centuries of nomadic living, he’d been assigned to a home base. Through his mentorship of Eve, he could learn what he needed to know to achieve his ambitions. If he absorbed all the layers of the mark system well enough, he had a shot at pleading his case for stability. He could teach others to perform as well in the field as he did . . . if he had a cadre of handlers and Marks at his disposal.