Dark Admirer (10 page)

“That shit on my face is a catalogue of my sins.” Anael paused and looked over his shoulder, making certain all of his tattoos were showing to their best effect. “And if you ever mention my face again, I’ll make you an impotent shell for the rest of your life. You got that? And the wings?” Anael drawled before letting his wings unfurl from between his shoulder blades, “have a good look. They’re black, not white. I’m not the sort of angel you’re thinking I am. I’m fallen. I’ve sinned. I’ve been shunned from Heaven. So, to be perfectly blunt, Richard Stokes, don’t fuck with me.”

Anael smiled as he heard the audible choking gasp come out of Richard’s mouth. He was still smiling to himself as he pulled the door open to the grungy bar that was at the corner of Richard’s street.

Eyes adjusting to the smoky darkness, he breezed past a waitress and pointed to a bottle on her tray.

“You want one of these?” she asked, picking up the brown bottle by the long neck as she showed him the red and blue label. Nodding, he walked to the back of the bar and took a booth that faced the dance floor. The place was empty with the exception of a few old drunks seated at the bar, belly-aching over the cold and the iced landscape from last night’s storm. Above their heads replays of the ball dropping in Times Square played on the TV screens. Anael watched it drop with clinical detachment.

Another damn year down, and infinity still to go. Hell, he was gonna need more than one rotten beer before he drowned out those thoughts. At least the humans had a chance to get off this lousy fucking ride—him, he was blessed with eternal life. Yeah, God had done him and his brothers some kind of favour when he’d given them that gift.

“Here you go,” the waitress purred as she bent over, flashing him a generous view down her top. She swivelled slightly on her heel as she set his beer in front of him, making certain there was no way he could miss looking at her ass. As she straightened she smiled and checked him out.

Christ, he despised being stared at. No, nix that. He hated to even be glanced at, forget about staring. He didn’t want anyone with their eyes on him.

“I’ve never seen you here before.”

He shrugged and reached for his beer. The waitress didn’t take the hint to beat tracks. Instead, she tilted her head and tried to catch his gaze. He averted his face and pretended interest in the TV. But he could still feel her gaze raking along his face and he wished his voice worked so he could tell her to get lost.

“So, I’m done here in an hour,” she said in a husky voice, “why don’t you stick around, maybe we can hook up?”

He ignored her, yet still she stood before him, her hot gaze taking everything in.

“So what’s your name?” When he didn’t answer, she shifted her chest, showing him her assets. “I’m Candy.” Her eyes flashed and she leaned forward, “you know, the kind you can lick and have melting in your mouth?”

She flicked her gaze over his mouth and he heard her thoughts.
Holy shit, what at body! And those gorgeous eyes. And the tats…bad ass, total bad boy. Mmm, yeah, he’s just what I’m looking for, and I’d bet my paycheque, he’s kinky as hell.

Anael gulped back his beer. She was right, of course. After all, kink had been his invention. But the thought of getting his inner freak on with this female wasn’t doing it for him. But thinking about getting kinky with Eve, now that had him growing damn hard in his jeans. Shit, the things he’d liked to do to Eve—the things he’d thought of doing to Eve…

“Hey, toots,” one of the men at the bar roared, “you wanna give me a refill or you gonna keep flashing your fake tits at pretty boy over there?”

“They’re not fake,” she whispered to Anael, then winked. “But you can discover that in,” she flicked her wrist and checked her watch, “fifty-nine minutes.”

Anael watched her walk away in her short patent leather skirt and towering platform boots. An image of Eve, dressed in a loose sweater and a pair of jeans filtered through his mind. All natural there.

Closing his eyes, he remembered exactly how natural she was as every curve fit into his body. No fake breasts, no make up disguising her beauty, no overt come-ons, just simmering feminine sex appeal, and Christ, he’d been hard the entire night through.

Hell, he was still fucking hard for her.

“Look at you. You always did have a knack for fitting in no matter the era.”

Anael looked up from his beer and straight into the eyes of the angel who had condemned him to an eternity of punishment. Sariel and his shit was the last fricking thing he felt like dealing with this morning.

“Anael, the Angel of Passion, looking so very lovelorn.”

‘Screw you.’

“What was that?” Sariel asked, cupping a hand to his ear. “I couldn’t hear you? Oh, that’s right, you’re a mute.”

Anael felt the rage and centuries old hatred flare up. How he despised Sariel.

“Brother.” The second voice was so quiet Anael wondered if he had only heard it in his mind. As his glance swayed from Sariel’s face, he saw another angel step around the wide shoulders.
Samael
.

His brother looked just as he had two thousand years ago when they had plummeted from Heaven together, shunned from His grace.

Samael was still tall, still wearing his dark brown hair to his shoulders. Still had those fathomless empty eyes that betrayed so much pain.

Anael nodded, acknowledging Samael. He’d always liked this brother. Hell, they’d sinned together, fallen together, and Anael had the feeling they were both suffering under Sariel’s imposed punishments. In that, they had a bond tighter than the shared blood of mortal brothers.

“Would you like your voice back?” Sariel asked in a taunt. “I took it away, but I can give it back to you.”

Anael looked away, not wanting his punisher to see the yearning in his eyes. Yes, he wanted his voice, wanted the freedom of speaking, of hearing his thoughts out loud and not in his head. He wanted to talk to someone other than the mortals he served. He wanted to talk to…yeah, he couldn’t think of her.

“All you have to do is ask.”

He would never ask Sariel for anything. He had never begged him before, and he wouldn’t beg him now.

“Still so proud,” Sariel said with a shake of his head. “Like Lucifer your pride knows no bounds. Pride caused Lucifer’s fall, will you succumb again, Anael? Will you fall once more to your pride and your vanity?”

“I am not vain,” he said, his voice coming out of his lips strong and assured and smooth as glass. “But I have my own sense of honour and it refuses to be relinquished so that I may beg of your mercy. Samael,” Anael murmured, looking at the angel next to Sariel. “It has been a long time since our paths have crossed.”

“So it has, brother.”

“And you are still the angel of—”

“Transformation,” Samael said in a low fervent voice.

Anael chuckled as he leaned back against the booth, spreading his thighs wide. “Is that what He is calling death these days?”

Samael scowled and Anael did not miss the pain that flashed in his brother’s dark eyes. Samael’s calling had never sat well with him. Out of all the angels God had created, Samael had been the most feared and despised by humans. The humans had adored Anael and all his brothers. They had prayed to them, believed in them—but not Samael. Samael was just as much despised amongst the mortals as Lucifer was. No matter what he did, Samael always left grief and tears in his wake, and Anael could see the pain and anguish of thousands of years of killing and death in Samael’s fathomless eyes.

Yeah, well he had his own millennia of pain to deal with to be too concerned with Samael’s.

Raising the bottle to his lips, Anael considered Sariel and Samael and wondered what the hell was going on. “God’s messenger and the Angel of Death, here in this dive of a bar on New Years day. What does it all mean?” he asked. “What does He want me to know?”

“You have done well, Anael. You’ve nearly fulfilled your punishment.”

“You should know,” he drawled, glaring at Sariel, “you set my punishment. Such power He gave you over us.
‘Sariel, the great seraph who decides the fates of angels who stray from God’s path’
. And he gave that gift to the right angel, didn’t he, because you certainly have a hard-on for power, don’t you, Sariel?”

Sariel’s lips twisted. “After two thousand years you’re still bitter.”

“After two thousand years, I’ve only grown more so.”

“May we?” Samael asked, motioning to the empty benches of the booth.

“Suit yourself, although I doubt you’ll find me scintillating company.”

“Come now, Anael,” Sariel chastised him as if were an errant child, “I’ve just allowed you your voice back. Such a beautiful instrument should not be wasted. Talk to us,” Sariel commanded as he rested back against the booth and spread his arms wide behind him. “What have you been doing since you’ve come to Earth?”

Anael slid his gaze to Samael who was in the process of unbuttoning his long black coat. Samael’s gaze caught his, and his brother looked away, but not before Anael saw the way he looked at him.

“Yes,” he said savagely addressing the horror in Samael’s eyes, “our brother has quite a way with dreaming up our punishments, hasn’t he? He took my voice and my face and made me a mute, tattooed abomination.”

Sariel chuckled as he waved away the approaching waitress. “What are you complaining about, Anael, you fit right in with these twenty-first century people, they are all tattooed. Body art has become quite common.”

“But not their faces!” he snarled, his lip curling in hatred.

Sariel shrugged. “You are no longer beautiful. That is part of your punishment.”