All That Bleeds (8 page)

In the blink of an eye, he’d halved the distance between them, then came to a dead stop.

He murmured something in a language almost as old as time. Muses had the gift of tongues, but it took a moment to translate in her head.

“A girl,” he’d said.

She needn’t have worked so hard to remember Etruscan. A moment later, he repeated it in Latin.

He backed away, turning his upper body so that he could look at Merrick.

“If you need my help killing her, you’re sorely out of practice,” the angel said.

Alissa leaned forward, studying the creature.

“You’re not here to kill her,” Merrick said.

“You woke me.” The angel pointed the tip of the dagger at Merrick. “You summoned me. If not to kill a demon, then why?”

“I want you to do something.”

The angel sheathed the knife and went to the kitchen. He didn’t bother to look at her or Merrick. Instead, his entire attention seemed focused on a polished silver serving bowl full of small oranges. He took one from the top and tore the skin from the fruit, then downed it in two large sections, his powerful jaws only chewing a few times before swallowing. He ate a second orange in the same way.

Then he walked through the living room toward the balcony doors. She watched with fascination as the two ridges on his scarred back opened and slick wings poked out.

“You want my help when the time comes. This is my price,” Merrick said.

The angel stopped and turned. He studied Merrick with smoky green eyes. “Your price?”

The angel moved with such force that a gust of air disturbed the papers on the desk. He slammed Merrick into the wall, closing a huge hand on Merrick’s throat. “Are you bewitched?”

Merrick didn’t struggle, nor did he attempt to answer.

Alissa took a step toward them, grabbing a marble obelisk to hit the angel with.

“She comes,” the angel said softly.

“No, Alissa,” Merrick said in a rasp of a voice. “Stay back.”

She hesitated. “I don’t— Are you—?”

“Look at me,” the angel commanded, studying Merrick’s face. “Are you bewitched?”

“Do you want me to answer? Or would you prefer just to choke me?” Merrick rasped dryly.

The angel let go. “Not bewitched,” he said thoughtfully.

“As I’ve told you before, magic doesn’t penetrate me.”

“You’re half human,” the angel said dismissively. “You can’t know that all magic won’t. Hers smells especially good.” He turned toward Alissa and focused his arresting gaze on the marble object still clasped in her hand. “You should put it down. Wielding a weapon against me is dangerous.”

Merrick walked to her and took the obelisk. “Her intent was to help me, not to attack you,” he said, setting the obelisk back on the small table behind them.

“She wanted to rescue you,” the angel said and smiled. His face was radiant with it. She had been told endlessly how beautiful she was, but she knew she was nothing compared to him. Killer or not, the angel was simply the most compelling creature on earth.

“Are you fearsome then?” he asked her. “Skilled enough to interrupt a fight between an arcanon and the ventala he trained to kill demons?”

“No, not at all,” she said. “Trying to help Mr. Merrick was instinctive because he’s my friend.”

The angel’s grin faded as he dipped his head in a nod. “Loyalty is good if it’s sincere.” Then he glanced sideways at Merrick. “You’re reckless. If she kills you in your sleep, don’t expect me to avenge you.”

Merrick laughed softly. “If she kills me in my sleep, I’ll die happy. No avenging will be necessary.”

“Tell me the favor.”

“I want you to fly her home.”

The angel’s brows drew together, making the thin forehead scars stretch. “Like a winged horse?”

Merrick rolled his eyes.

The angel shook his head at Merrick in exasperation. “You summoned
me
to help
you
with a
girl
. Apocalypse?”

Merrick chuckled.

“Seriously, you were wrong to summon me for this.”

Merrick shrugged.

“Some day we may have a disagreement that one of us doesn’t walk away from.”

Merrick shook his head. “You can’t kill me. There’s that prophecy you want me to help you with.”

“Yes, try and live long enough for that. I invested a lot of time training you,” the angel said.

“Sure,” Merrick said with a smirk, “but you’ve got nothing but time.”

Alissa studied them with frank curiosity. Were they friends? Not precisely, but they were something to each other. She wanted to ask questions. She wanted to sit down with them and untangle their mysteries. Exactly what did the angel know of the afterlife? Of the secrets of ancient times? There were some original legends buried among the memories contained in the Wreath, but they were reportedly fragmented and hazy. When she’d tried on the Wreath, she hadn’t seen them, though she would have liked to.

The angel turned to her and touched his chest. “Lysander,” he said.

“Alissa,” she returned.

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“Not usually.”

“Then you’re welcome,” Lysander said. He walked out onto the balcony, and she heard the rush of air as his wings burst out of his back.

She stared after the angel for a moment, then she turned to Merrick. “So an archangel. Why did he call himself an arcanon?”

“Because he’s fallen.”

“Didn’t all the fallen angels become demons?”

“Apparently not.”

She glanced at the balcony doors. “I suppose I shouldn’t keep him waiting.” She started to go, but then turned back. It might be the last time she saw Merrick. The thought saddened her. She crossed to him and kissed him on the cheek, then backed away quickly, feeling the way he tensed.

“Obviously I don’t know the full extent of what it cost you to summon him, but I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me tonight.” She held up a hand as if to wave good-bye, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. “Even if I don’t see you again, I won’t ever forget.” She touched her fingertips to her lips and extended them in a brief makeshift kiss.

His gaze caressed her with an unveiled hunger that made things deep within her tighten. Laconically he said, “Stay.”

“I wish I could,” she whispered, the words slipping out before she had time to stop them.

“Alissa—” Her name had come from both directions.

Ignoring the impatient archangel, Merrick extended a hand. She struggled against the urge to take it, backing away slowly.

“I really have to go home. My—people are counting on me,” she said.

He didn’t drop his arm. He waited, as though he’d pull her back by sheer force of will. He almost did.

She fisted her hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just can’t.”

Ruthlessly steady, his hand continued to reach for hers, stubbornly wanting to bridge a chasm not meant to be bridged.

Her body rigid as she battled her desire to stay, she finally forced herself to turn and step out into the night. She closed the balcony door and leaned against it, exhaling. Lysander hovered above her, his wings slowly beating the air.

“Now I understand,” he said.

“Understand what?”

“Why he wants you so badly.”

Alissa stared up at him blankly.

“You’re as reckless as he is.”

Merrick clenched his fists and closed his eyes, trying for calm. Within him, dark emotions warred.

Frustration. Discord. Jealousy.

She’d wanted to stay, but she’d gone. He hated the Etherlin for its hold on her. Hated her commitment to duty, to history, to destiny. Really hated the way she’d looked at Lysander.

Merrick ground his teeth together. Fallen or not, Lysander had been crafted from heaven’s ether, had been touched by the hand of God. Only Lysander’s own sin had tainted him, and as irresistible as the blood of muses was to vampires and ventala, that’s how irresistible Lysander was to humans. Alissa might be part muse, but she was many generations down the family tree; she was many parts human. If Lysander had been standing in the living room with his hand out, Alissa North would never have stepped onto that balcony.

Merrick leaned his head against the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. But did he want her to stay under those circumstances? Compelled by magic rather than desire?

Yeah, under those circumstances or
any
, he thought savagely.

Merrick grimaced and rubbed his eyes. She was a muse, and he was ventala. There was no future for them. He knew that to the marrow of his bones.

The problem was that he didn’t care. He wanted her.

Tightening his muscles until they ached, he wondered just how far inside him this obsession with Alissa North had burrowed.

“You’ll get yourself killed. Her, too, probably,” he murmured, as if saying the words out loud would help convince him—would somehow hold him back from what he wanted to do next.

The vampire in him weighed the risk of death and destruction and gave its cool and expected response.
Give me what I want. I don’t care what it costs.

Most of the time, the human side of him won out over the vampire because Merrick took pleasure in crushing vampire urges, the same way he took pleasure in crushing vampires. Unfortunately, in this case, Merrick’s human side wanted Alissa North, too.

He rose. Time to suffocate in magic.

Lysander stood on the railing, towering like a flesh-and-blood Florentine bronze, his massive wings spread behind him.

“You’ll face the ground, so you can feel what it really is
to fly.” He leaned forward, caught her upper arms in his hands and lifted her. For a moment, her bare feet rested on the glossy black rail, and her breath caught in her throat. Then, with the snap of his wings, they rose. Above the windows and the rooftop, above the black-and-white buildings, into the murky sky, and higher into soft, clean air.

Neither of them spoke. She pointed the way home, and they glided and swooped, rose and dove, amidst treetops and rooftops until she knew she would dream about flying for the rest of her life.

He landed where she indicated, within a collection of trees near the lake. It was a place that she didn’t think the security cameras would easily penetrate. When her feet were on the ground, she faced him.

“Thank you, Lysander.”

He nodded.

“How did you and Merrick become friends?” she asked, wanting to sate her curiosity and to delay his departure.

The archangel’s gaze shifted to the right. “I smell something. Not a demon, but something that’s touched what lies beneath. If you walk around the lake, avoid that direction,” he said.

Alissa looked the way he’d pointed. It was the path she’d taken between the Xenakis house and her own. If there were lingering traces of black magic, maybe she could follow it back to the person who’d betrayed her. “What do you mean? What exactly—?”

His wings flapped, lifting him a few feet off the ground. “There’s a subterfuge to you. I don’t know whether you conceal things to protect yourself or for some more sinister reason.”

“I—”

“Don’t defend yourself. Time will reveal your character better than words. Just understand something. I need Merrick to do something, and he’s promised he will. Also, he’s my friend—the only friend I’ve chosen to have in hundreds of years. So when I said that if you killed him, I wouldn’t avenge him, it wasn’t true.”

“I’m a muse. I help people. I don’t kill them.”

“You are well aware that power can be used to inspire violence as easily as peace. Have a care for his safety, because where you are concerned, he clearly does not.” He didn’t look down as he rose into the night.

With his departure, the cold engulfed her. She shivered as she thought about Lysander’s implication. What retribution would Merrick face for rescuing her from Cato Jacobi’s balcony? That worried her. Jacobi was clearly very dangerous. She didn’t want Merrick to be hurt because he’d helped her.

Merrick can take care of himself. You know that. Everyone knows that.

The thoughts reassured her as she left the woods for the lakeside path. The entire night had been so surreal. It was hard to drag her mind back to the Etherlin, to normal life, but with the dawn, the sun bathed the world in a tawny glow.

The splendor of her neighborhood hit her all at once, reminding her of who she was and of the danger in standing around in daylight where someone might see her. She needed to cover her arms. She couldn’t let anyone see evidence of the bite or the subsequent transfusion.

She looked upward again, her eyes traveling along the puffed clouds that dotted the sky toward the Varden and Merrick. She wished that, like Lysander, she had wings that would carry her through the night undiscovered. Then she could go wherever she wanted, could see Merrick whenever she liked—which she suspected would be often.

She dragged her gaze back to Earth, to reality.

You didn’t work so hard for so many years to throw it all away in one night. Forget about black-and-white penthouses and iron balconies. Forget about the Varden, Cato Jacobi, and
Lysander. And especially, for your dad’s sake and for the sake of your future, forget about Merrick.

You’re back where you belong. Be grateful for that.

She turned from the path and strode to the front of the house, stopping halfway up the walk when she realized that on the doorstep was her former best friend and current Wreath rival, Cerise Xenakis.

The wind tousled Cerise’s hair as she bent to set down a large document box.

Egyptian princess meets girl gladiator,
Alissa thought, noticing Cerise’s kohl eye makeup and her strappy boots. With Alissa’s feet bare and Cerise already five foot ten before the tall boots, she’d noticeably tower over Alissa, possibly raising questions about where Alissa’s shoes were. Alissa hung back, grateful that the gown’s skirt skimmed the ground, hiding her feet.

“Hello,” Alissa said calmly, posing herself as elegantly as possible. The first rule of being a public figure was
never appear rattled
. Alissa laced her fingers together behind her back so that her arms were hidden, the hollows of her elbows shadowed and protected by the sides of her body.