Heven & Hell Anthology (Heven and Hell) (20 page)

“I can’t ask you to pay that price, Cole. It’s too high,” I said when I finally was able to speak.

“There is no price too high to pay for you.” He reached out and caught a strand of hair that had fallen over my shoulder. He wound the curl around his finger and tugged, effectively pulling me into his space. He released the curl and let his hand trail down my arm and over the back of my hand, seeking my fingers that were already twitching with the need to be enclosed in his.

“Please don’t touch me,” I said, my voice husky.

“Why? Because when I touch you, you can’t think? Because you forget the reasons you claim we can’t be together?”

My eyes lifted to his. “I can’t forget, Cole.”

He sighed and released me, stepping back slightly and dropping his hand. “Fine. At least tell me why you’re rejecting me.”

“I’m not rejecting you.” I argued.

“The reason, Gemma.” He insisted.

I took a breath, ready to spill it all, hoping it would shock him into finally letting me go. I would confess to him everything, how loving me would only taint him, how it would jeopardize his status as a Supernal Being. That when he died he could be stripped of his body and possibly cast out of heaven… How his very eternal life could be ruined.

Somewhere in the house, a door slammed. My head snapped up to listen.

 “Oh, no,” Cole said. “You’re not getting out of it that easy. I’ve been waiting for too long.”

I nodded. “We can’t be together because…” Footsteps on the stairs had me looking toward his closed bedroom door.

“It’s probably just my mom. She’s not going to bother us.”

“When you die…” I began and Cole shifted closer to me, his eyes intent on my face.

There was a loud knock on his door and I jumped away from him like I was caught trying to steal something that didn’t belong to me.

Cole let out a low swear, then yelled, “What?”

“I know you’re not talking to me like that!” said a disbelieving voice from the other side.

“Kimber,” Cole hissed and shook his head. “I’ll be down in a minute,” he yelled impatiently.

“Aww, are you changing? You know it isn’t anything I haven’t seen before.”

Something hot burned through my chest and I jerked, turning away toward the window. Suddenly, the cold seemed preferable to being in here. I didn’t intend to stick around to hear every last detail of Cole’s relationship with his ex. I pushed the window up, but he caught my arm before I could toss myself out.

“I said I’ll be down in a minute,” he practically growled toward the door. Then he turned back, releasing his hold on me. Before either one of us could say anything, the handle began to turn and the door slowly began to open.

I was out the window so fast he didn’t have time to try and stop me. I heard him hiss my name, but by then I was already in the grass and making my way across the yard to disappear into the darkness.

I turned back only once to see his dark head staring out the window while a girl with beautiful red hair came up behind him to grab his arm and slowly lead him away.

*    *    *

The bar was a dingy, dirty hole in the wall that only locals could possibly know about. It wasn’t the type of shiny contemporary place on the main street in Portland that served apple martinis alongside crystal bowls filled with roasted mixed nuts. No, this bar was three blocks from that place and the entrance was located in a narrow alleyway between two brick buildings. There was a dumpster that probably hadn’t been emptied since nineteen eighty at the end of the alley along with a vent built into the street where some kind of exhaust filtered through, giving the already filthy place the authentic quality of one of those murder TV shows.

It was the perfect place for a criminal to hide.

Or in this case, a breeder to hide.

Before entering the bar I decided to do a little watching of the comings and goings of the place, so I melted back into the exhaust (which strangely smelled like cabbage) letting the thick fog conceal me from drunk, prying eyes. If I were being completely honest with myself, I wasn’t really back here for reconnaissance—I didn’t need to hold a stakeout. I already knew what the breeder was guilty of, just as I knew that he would likely be here tonight.

And the mood I was in made it the perfect time to kick his ass.

No, what I was really doing was trying to scorch from my brain the image of Cole and Kimber in the window. I should probably be happy she’s there, right now, with him. Hadn’t I just finished telling him we couldn’t be together? It would be good if maybe they could rekindle their relationship… Who was I kidding? From everything I’ve seen and heard from Kimber, she wasn’t just one crayon short of a full box; she was just the empty box. And considering she was now mixed up with Hecate, Cole would be better off alone.

I don’t know what I’d been thinking going over there tonight. I should’ve just avoided him until I couldn’t, which probably would’ve been in a room full of people at Heven’s. At least then, we wouldn’t be alone and he wouldn’t be able to get the truth out of me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him. I was just afraid if I did he would throw everything away and I wouldn’t have enough resolve to stop him.

“Tell me what the price is to love you. I’ll pay it.”

I would hear those words in my sleep. I would hear them in the sunrise and when the stars sparkled in the sky. They would be there always, whispering directly to my heart, following me wherever I would go, and even if I spent eternity alone, those words would forever wrap around my soul and keep me from ever feeling alone. To him, those words had been a plea, but to me… they were everything.

The door to the seedy bar slammed and brought me out of my thoughts. This was no time to moon over a lost love. I had work to do, work that was important and the sole reason I was allowed to live here on Earth instead of being damned to hell. If I did nothing else right in my entire existence, I would at least be able to rid the Earth of scum.

I straightened and walked out of the rolling smoke and toward the entrance to the bar. It was late, just the right hour for predators to be on the loose. I pulled the door open and went inside, shaking my hair around my shoulders and putting a little extra swing to my step. Not too much, just a little.

I sat at the bar—at the single open seat. The bartender, a greasy-looking man in a sweat-stained gray T-shirt, came over with a dirty white rag in his hand. “What can I get you?”

“Vodka, on the rocks.” I sat back in my seat and kicked one leg up over the other, stretching out my toe and pointing it toward the floor. Knee-high boots were a necessity for me—a place to hide all my weapons—but men liked them for other reasons.

My drink arrived in front of me and I reached out and pulled the glass closer, not letting on that even touching the glass made my skin crawl. Before I could force myself to take a sip, a man, about three inches shorter than me with a bald head and tattoos on his neck, came over.

“Buy you a drink?” he said.

“I’ve got one, thanks.” He wasn’t the guy I was here for.

“That one’s gonna be empty soon.” He tried again.

I set the glass down on the counter and leaned over into his ear like I was about to tell him the secret to unlock all women. I could hear him swallow at the impression that his offer for more liquor had won my heart. “I’m not interested,” I said with just enough bite to snap him out of his love-drunk stupor. “But in spirit of your offer, I’ll let you pretend it was you who rejected me. Now get out of here before I introduce you to the dagger in my boot.”

He pulled back, sneering, to look me in the eye, and what he saw there must have convinced him I was serious because very loudly he said, “Lady you’re sick!” and then shuffled back to his table with his equally disgusting friends.

I suppressed an eye roll and turned back to the bar to grab my drink. After a few minutes of pondering just how dirty the glass really was, I was approached.

This time by the breeder.

I always loved the jobs when the scum came to me.

Suddenly the barstool next to me was available and a man wearing scuffed-up jeans and boots slid in close to me. I glanced at him and gave a half-smile, taking in his tight black T-shirt, long blond hair, and unshaven face. He actually was pretty good-looking—but all Incubi were. It was how they lured in the women.

Incubi were the worst kind of evil because they pretended they weren’t evil at all. They preyed on women, lonely women who were easy targets. They flashed their smiles, pretended to care, and then before you knew it, the woman was pregnant with the spawn of a demon. But sometimes there was an Incubus who wasn’t into luring in the women first. Maybe they were impatient or maybe it was just because they were mean, but it was those breeders who just took what they wanted, planting their seed and then disappearing, only to reappear in another city to do it all over again. Breeders were one of the devil’s favorite types of way to spread wickedness and sin around the earth. All he had to do was turn them loose and watch as demon spawn was born to commit violent and wretched acts against the people of God.

I’d taken down a lot of these breeders, and tonight I was adding to the list.

“What’s a girl like you doing in a bar like this?” the blond asked, leaning in just a little so I could hear him over the awful, loud music.

I smiled, showing my teeth. “Looking for a guy like you.”

He smiled and reached up to rub his jaw with his hand. “Well, now…”

I took a sip of the vodka, feeling it burn all the way down. I hated alcohol. It was nasty, stupid, and I didn’t understand why anyone would want to drink something that would cause them to lose control of themselves or any situation they were in. But it would look weird if the girl I was portraying was sitting in a bar, looking for a certain type of guy, and not interested in even sipping something.

“What do ya say we get out of here?” he said, getting right down to business, and I wanted to laugh with joy.

This time, my smile was genuine, but only because this was going to be a quick job. “Lead the way.”

He stood and grabbed the almost full glass of vodka still in my hand and swallowed it in one gulp. On the inside my stomach turned, but I continued to smile on the outside. We endured a few cat calls as we walked through the bar and toward the door and then stepped out in the cold night air. I welcomed it because it was better than the stale, nasty air that had been inside. I giggled like an airhead as he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the alley, going straight into the smoke where I’d been moments before. He pushed me up against the wall and brought himself closer.

“Tell me what the price is to love you. I’ll pay it.”

The words whispered through my head as the Incubus lowered his head to kiss me. I turned my head, giggling, and in one swift moment yanked out the dagger and shoved it into his chest. Then I thrust him away from me. I couldn’t bear to have this scum anywhere near me when Cole was so close to the surface of my mind.