Fallen (10 page)

Learn her.
Not so sure of what she really wanted or could do
.

It was a rare gift he didn't want to open too quickly. She wasn't his death; she could very well be his life.

“Very wrong,” she whispered, yet her body melded against his chest, her breasts crushing the black silk to his skin.

“Don't want it to be wrong,” he said.

He combed his fingers into her hair and savored the slither of a curl across the inside of his crooked thumb. He clutched her hair, not wanting to lose her.

One slip of Joe and he would lose. She wouldn't miss him. Or would she?

He couldn't stand it any longer. Cooper crushed his mouth to Pyx's.

Sighs echoed in his mouth. The sweet sound of surrender.

She clutched him tightly, her fingers digging into the flesh on his back. All the hurt she could give him was no match to the taste of her desire. It flamed in his veins, warming his icy blood. And when their tongues dashed across one another, he moaned hungrily.

His hand wandered down her waist, and he toyed with the rip in her skirt where the skin felt softer than the silk. He flipped his hand, and tucked his fingers behind the dress, softly stroking over her mons.

“Oh, I don't know.” Pyx broke the kiss, ceasing their
contact, the sublime connection of skin against skin. Slapping a hand to the door frame, she steadied herself.

“Sorry, that was wrong to move so quickly.”

“Enough with the right and wrong of everything! There is no right or wrong. Only choice.”

Cooper's mouth dropped open. The air hummed with the echo of her furious statement.

“That was weird,” Pyx said. “I don't know where that came from.”

He did. By the divine Above, could she be?

“You were speaking your truth,” he said. “Kadesch?”

“What?” She didn't know. Couldn't remember. Wouldn't, surely.

But he did.

Stepping backward into the kitchen, Pyx shook her head. One hand went down to subconsciously pull at her skirt. “That's enough vampire hunting for one night. Gotta go. Bye.”

“Wait!” He rushed down the hall after her. “I moved too fast. I won't do that again. Not unless—” The door slammed shut. Pyx was gone. “You ask.”

What she'd said about there being no right or wrong, only choice. It is what Kadesch had said to convince Juphiel to fall.

Of course, anyone could put those words together and form a similar statement.

“But she is like me,” he muttered. “Her eyes. They are like mine. And she doesn't even know.”

A little bit of his salvation had just run away from him. He felt it every time he touched her. Pyx was the key to him becoming completely human and earning his soul.

 

With a hunger for pizza on her tongue, Pyx flashed to a pizza shop and was back at her apartment five minutes
later with a steamy pie laid out on the coffee table. Food put her mind from deeper issues.

Like the angel.

“What the hell was that about? Letting a Fallen one touch me like that?”

And liking it. That was the part she couldn't rationalize.

She'd wanted to remain in his embrace and encourage his touch as he explored her skin. He'd been a little cool, not so warm as she was, but she knew it was because his blood ran cold.

And she would have liked to remain in his bedroom to see what would have happened next. So why hadn't she?

Tossing a crust onto the greasy pizza box, she sat back against the sofa and put up a boot on the edge of the coffee table. She didn't
like
the angel Juphiel, who called himself Cooper, and who flirted with every woman he saw. Did she?

She wasn't hungry anymore.

Padding into the bathroom, she stripped naked along the way, leaving her clothes in a trail. She flipped on the light switch and looked in the mirror. A dribble of black blood ran from her ear. Cooper hadn't pointed that out. A vampire had clocked her good.

“Can I do this?” she asked the woman staring at her. “Can
you?
You're just a girl. You're an anomaly. And I don't understand why.”

Leaning in closer, she studied her eyes. They were green, blue and violet with flecks of gold, white and black. Kaleidoscope.

“Just like his.” She leaned her palms on the cool vanity, head hanging. “That's odd. Why are my eyes the same as the Fallen's?”

They were two of the most opposite creatures walking this world. One from Above, one from Beneath. They had nothing in common. The angel sought his halo for reasons she could only imagine were not good. And she sought to kill him.

Nothing in common.

Except when they touched it almost felt right.

Pyx recalled telling Cooper there was no right or wrong, only choice. It was the weirdest statement. She didn't know where it had come from, only that she had spoken it as if she'd meant it.

So could she choose to like his touch? Perhaps she had already done so.

“Y
ou successfully implanted the tracking device in the Fallen?”

Bruce hooked a thumb in his pants pocket and forced a confident grin. “You know it. I am the best.” And don't ask any more questions.

“That's all well and good,” Antonio offered, not as impressed as Bruce had hoped, “but wouldn't it be easier to track the muse? The angel will probably rip the damned thing out.”

“If I knew where the muse was, I'd go after her. Best scenario finds me tracking the Fallen to his muse. Then I'll have them both where I want them.”

“Which is where?” Antonio asked in his deep, hissing tone. “We need them in a controlled environment.”

“We need the muse. Pregnant.”

“And we're going to simply allow the Fallen to trot off to his next muse after that?”

“If he's still wearing the tracker, then yes. It's a win/win scenario. Every muse he finds, we track him to her and reap the rewards.”

The leader of tribe Anakim sat back in his chair, dissatisfied, but clearly he could not find a better argument. That pleased Bruce.

Now to get that damned tracking receiver working.

 

He sat across the table from a demon, who sipped a macchiato. Basking in the coppery glow of the setting sun made Cooper feel alive. After centuries of survival in the nonexistence of the Ninth Void it was an amazing feeling to experience life. He hadn't had it for millennia. And this mortal life was so much richer, full, and exquisite.

Mortals had an idea of heaven. It was all angels, clouds, pearly gates and love, love, love.

Where Cooper had been imprisoned hadn't emanated love by any mortal imagining. It was truly like the mortal's idea of hell. A void without sound, color or surface. If he'd uttered a word or cried out, he hadn't heard his voice. He'd floated, endlessly. He could not see anything. Sensation had not existed. Thought had eventually left him, and he had become a sort of embryo awaiting final judgment.

Yet the slightest thread of hope had bound his being and kept him from completely surrendering to the void. Mortality. Humanity. As Kadesch had implied, it could be his.

Could Pyx know? Could he be right about her? He had no proof. He knew the origins of the Sinistari. Yet Pyx did not, so to simply ask her would serve little purpose.

He turned his wrist where the sun beamed across the flesh. It felt like a gift. Kept vampires away, too.

“You've come here every day since you arrived?” Pyx sipped the cream-swirled macchiato the waitress had
dropped off. She sat across from him before the white iron café table. “I think I know why.”

He followed her gaze to the waitress's swinging hips. He hadn't seen the dark-haired beauty here before but she didn't appear to be in training. Must have been working different hours the past week.

Hmm, she was a vision. Obsidian hair and lush lashes gave her an Italian heartbreaker look. Curves, so many curves, his eyes didn't know where to start.

“She is pretty,” he agreed. “But the coffee here is what draws me.”

“Uh-huh.” No belief in that tone. The demon leaned over the table. “It wasn't her breasts as she leaned way over the table to pour your refill, Casanova?”

“I do like that particular body part. You jealous?”

“Please.”

Yes, she was. Because she tilted an elbow on the back of the chair, which lifted her small breasts nicely. Score one for the angel trying to soften up the killer demon.

“Why do you want to waste any more time here on earth than it takes to find your muse?” she suddenly asked. “And don't tell me it's because of some stupid quest for your halo. Look around you. All of creation is a mess. His sons and daughters are an equal mess. They kill, steal, maim, cheat and lie. And you want to be a part of it?”

“You do, too. Doing a great job of blending with the locals too, to judge from your penchant for kleptomania.”

She had been playing with an iPod since they sat down. And he'd also seen her shuffle a cell phone and car keys in the pocket of her jeans jacket. The demon didn't own a car that he knew of. She must be starting a collection.

“Not for all the bubble gum in the world. I'm just here to do a job, buddy.”

“And when that job is done, you'll return Beneath? No arguments? No lingering memories of earth?”

She turned her cheek to him, scanning the street. “We're not talking about me. I asked why you want to stick around in this mess of humanity.”

“I have my reasons.”

If he told her the real reason for the halo search she'd never buy it. Who would? He was an angel, for heaven's sake. For as lacking as his power was now that he'd Fallen, he was still stronger, wiser and smarter than any mortal alive. And who would give that up?

Cooper leaned over his coffee cup to bridge the distance between them. From the corner of his eye he noted the waitress. Man, she could swing her hips. Did she smell sweet? Nah. He couldn't possibly scent her all the way across the dining area.

He averted his attention to the smirking demon. “Why do
you
want to be here? To prove yourself? That's weak. If you'd wanted to prove yourself to the Sinistari you'd have knifed me last night after I shifted.”

Pyx glanced aside, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. He'd guessed right. There were deeper reasons she walked this earth.

“Truthfully?”

Now they would get somewhere.

Pyx put up her boot on the nearby chair. No silk dress today, but instead a leather miniskirt and a tightly fitted leather vest over a soft red sweater. “I'm certainly not perfect.”

“No one is.”

“Angels are perfect. Or in your case, you
were
.”

“Angels have mastered perfection. But once my feet touched mortal ground I lost my divinity. I have never
considered myself perfect, even when I was blessed by His grace. But that still doesn't answer my question.”

She tilted the iPod up and down between two fingers. The sun crept across her cheek and glinted in one of her eyes. A riot of color danced there. The most beautiful part of a demon was not the costume but that one bit of its true self that remained—the eyes.

Yet again, if she knew her origins…

“I do need to prove myself. But…”

“You can tell me. I won't tell anyone else.”

“I guess I wouldn't mind becoming a part of this realm. Earth, as it is. I've never felt…in place. I told you this already.”

She set the iPod on the table and clasped the coffee cup with both hands. Unable to meet his eyes, she scanned everywhere around her. Teasing the end of a long red curl, she couldn't realize how dragging it across her lips ignited Cooper's libido. Made him imagine dragging his tongue across soft parts of her.

“Beneath is the demonic realm, but don't you think a demon should feel like they belong there? And look at me. I'm a chick!”

“You fit in well here on earth. You've mastered the female costume. You are comfortable with the ways and means to procuring material things.”

“Then I must belong here. As messed up as
here
is.”

“It is a crazy world.” More so than Cooper had expected. But that made it all the more interesting. And a greater challenge to try to assimilate. “But it will be such an adventure to become mortal, don't you think? So many things to do,” he encouraged. “Entertainments and education. Food and commerce. To hold a job and feel good for accomplishments. And the people!”

“I do like the men. They are interesting to look at.”

He winked. “As are the women. Short dresses and pretty shoes.” Where had the waitress gone?

“Tight-fitting shirts and kilts—er…pants.”

He caught the demon's slip. She was into him. Poor girl.

“I really like the food,” she added quickly. “But so far your cooking has been the best.”

“I'll cook for you any time you ask.”

“I've cold pizza at home.”

“That sounds not good at all.”

“I'm doing the mortal experience, buddy. You should be proud of me. So what else do you like about earth?”

“Everything. The variety of cultures and the art. The exquisite architecture. I want to go to India and see the Taj Mahal.”

“My guess is no place on earth is quite so glorious as Above.”

“It'll be even better then because imperfection makes for beauty. What about you? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?”

She looked down toward the sidewalk paralleling the café's patio. The tip of her tongue dashed out to trace her upper lip. When she looked to Cooper a resolute indifference tilted her head. “I just want to belong.”

He touched her hand, smoothing over her narrow fingers. They were warm from the hot cup. “Me, too.”

Cooper felt the connection as their gazes met. She didn't try to look away. And in those moments they shared far more than simple words could ever equate.

“I do think discovering this imperfect civilization will be an adventure,” Pyx said. “But are you implying you want to become mortal, too? I thought you were just doing a halo search?”

Dare he tell her?

“You don't want your halo because you can use it as a weapon,” she said, her voice growing more confident as she guessed his secret. “You want it for the earthbound soul within.”

Cooper crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“When an angel Falls its soul gets trapped in the halo. You want to become mortal.”

“As do you.”

She nodded, silently allowing him to join her club of wanting something so simple yet so meaningful. When he didn't remove his hand, she did, slipping it under the table and sipping her coffee.

He confused her. Good.

“Who'd a thought,” Pyx said. “An angel looking for his soul. Well, you'd better hurry.”

“I run into my muse, you slay me, right?”

She nodded, but it wasn't quite so adamant as previously.

“I'm still not feeling anything,” he said. “Your spell must not have worked.”

“Give it time. I believe you were drawn to Paris for a reason.”

“I told you I came here because I wasn't drawn here.”

“Whatever. Whew!” She set down the coffee cup. “This stuff is strong.”

“Yeah, you'll be able to kick my ass to Sunday after that double shot.”

“So since we're not going to get in any muse action today, what do you say we hunt some vampires again? You must be itching to get your hands on them after last night.”

He rubbed his lower back. “Don't remind me.”

“I brought holy water.”

“You have holy water? What, did you rob Nôtre Dame?”

She shrugged, a silent admission. Pyx shaded her eyes with a hand. “Sun's setting. We can sniff out the vamps in less than an hour. You going to pay your standard way?”

“Yep. I'll be right back.”

Pyx leapt over the iron fence surrounding the sidewalk tables, completely oblivious to the fact a woman in a miniskirt would never perform such a feat. “I'm going to cross the street to that record shop. It looks just goth enough to maybe have a clue on the vamps. Meet me there.”

Cooper nodded and turned to find the waitress. She smiled as he neared her. Her name tag pronounced her “Sophia.” He pressed a palm to her forehead. “Thanks, Sophia. You must be new here?”

“Not at all. Just back from vacation in New Jersey, of all places, with family. Oh, that tip was generous. Merci.”

He winced. Sometimes it made him feel sick to utilize the trick on mortals. He was stealing from her, which was the truth of it.

“New Jersey, eh?” Now why did that—?

“Yes, it's a pretty state. We spent a day in New York shopping as well.”

New Jersey was where he'd initially landed when he'd been summoned to earth. And Sophia had been there? This did not feel right.

“Lisa says you've been here every day for a week.” She itched her wrist and tugged up her sleeve. “You must love our coffee.”

“It's delicious.” Cooper started to fall into the bruised-rose color of her voice, until he noticed her forearm. He touched her hand and tilted her arm toward him. Subtle vibrations shimmied up his arm and he quickly released her. “That's an interesting mark.”

“Oh, this? Been there since I was born. A birthmark.” She rubbed her forearm. “It looks like two sexy number sevens to me.”

He sucked in a breath and slapped a palm to his abdomen where a part of him had begun to warm. He wondered what it would feel like if his heart could beat. Probably be racing to the finish right now. “Got a rash?”

“No, the itching just started. I think I must have burned it when I was brewing the macchiato. So, I'll see you again tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

He turned and stalked out of the café and weaved through the tables outside. Feeling as though a china shop bull were on his heels, Cooper couldn't make it away from the café quick enough.

Before crossing the street to join Pyx, he turned and eyed Sophia. She spoke to another waitress.

Suddenly he saw every fine detail about her. Her dark hair was highlighted with deep red strands that matched her lipstick. Her eyes, initially he'd thought brown, were flecked with gold. And those curves—he'd like to get his hands around that flesh.

“Hell.” He exhaled gruffly and forced his focus away from Sophia. He slapped a palm over his gut where his sigil unique to the angel dominions curved like two funky sevens. “She's my muse.”