Of Alliance and Rebellion (2 page)

Max spun around, seeing nothing but red as another scream broke from Oliver’s now thrashing body. “
Fuck
!” Max bellowed. His fist snapped out before he could stop it, colliding with the stone wall hard enough that his hand broke.

Luke jumped, but didn’t glance his way as Max gave a cursory glance at the cracked skin of his knuckles while it began to mend. The sight of his body supernaturally healing due to what their captors had done to him only enraged him more. He clenched his fists at his sides and let the blood from his hand drip to the floor unchecked.

As Luke leaned over Oliver, whispered prayers tumbling from his mouth, Max paced back and forth, mentally repeating his diatribe of promised revenge until Oliver’s screams grew loud enough to block out even that.

Nervous
.

Anahita, one of the cherubim and instrument of the Most High, was nervous. She knew the emotion well despite the fact she was
supposed
to be completely emotionless. Anahita felt as though she spent a good deal of her existence wallowing in the forbidden feeling.

Though currently invisible to the human eye, she still leaned back into the cool stone façade of the makeshift prison as a human guard walked around the corner. Her heart thundered when the human passed close enough to touch, and Anahita allowed herself the small creature comfort of placing an open palm over her chest to try to calm it. No other angels were around, so the small gesture of weakness would not be witnessed by those who held her to the high standards of her kind.

The same heart that thundered beneath her palm jerked a little in the direction of the cell behind her.

She could feel him.

It was so much stronger than she had anticipated, this link to her Temptation. This close to the man she should avoid at all costs, her taboo feelings were …
intense
.

Anahita’s head sank back to the stone wall, her blond waves snagging against the rough, porous surface and pulling slightly. Why—oh, why—did her first official death mission, the mission she’d fought so hard to be given, have to involve
him
? Was it a test?

Of course it is a test
.

“I
will
carry out my mission,” she whispered as she willed her still-thundering heart to slow. When the traitorous organ failed to comply, Anahita jerked her hand from its resting place between her breasts so she could no longer feel it. She did not have the flaming sword needed to kill the immortals, but she needed to strike now or she risked losing control of her Compulsion. She would capture them, and once they were in her keeping, she would attain the weapon.

With a quick inhalation of air, Anahita closed her eyes and focused to sink through the wall and into the cell that held her targets. The cool night breeze faded, and she knew she’d made it into the cell. Keeping her invisibility fixed, Anahita turned and cracked her lids open.

The immortals’ cell was cold, and not just in temperature. The complete lack of hope, the pain, the scent of unwashed male—all combined to create the coldest environment Anahita had ever encountered. Her right hand moved up to cup her left bicep in an attempt to generate warmth.

To her right, a man with vivid red hair that not even dirt could dim sat huddled over another man with blond hair and a beautiful face knotted in agony. The face contorted even more, and the man’s body twisted on a dingy cot, his mouth opening in the silent scream of an infant who’d cried hard enough to lose his air.

As she watched, the man’s chest convulsed with a great gulp of oxygen, and when next he opened his mouth, the scream was no longer silent. The pain was so vivid it caused Anahita to take a stunned step back, her wings hitting the unforgiving stone of the cell’s corner.

The red-headed man shivered and hugged himself, feelings of impotence pouring off of him in tangible waves. But it was the sound of a strangled groan that snagged Anahita’s attention.

At the opposite end of the cell, Anahita could barely make out the broad shoulders of the third man. The man that was
hers
.

No
. She shook her head, dislodging the errant thought. Not her man; he was her Temptation. And she would do well to remember that.

Those broad shoulders were tense enough to hike up into the shaggy length of his hair: hair so dark in color that it must be black, even though it was impossible to tell in the dim light. Without her permission, her eyes roamed from the broad shoulders down to the well-muscled back that the man’s threadbare shirt did nothing to shield.

The man’s back narrowed into trim hips that held up a barely together set of army fatigues that draped across the man’s buttocks like a caress of fabric. Anahita gulped.

Here, Anahita’s eyes stalled, as she experienced a brand new emotion.

Lust
.

Anahita was lusting after this human whom she was charged with killing. The emotion led humans to commit unspeakable atrocities, and yet, as Anahita felt it for the first time, she could not see what was so bad about it.

Certainly, the emotion caused her belly to ache—something that had never happened before. And certainly, her heart was now thundering harder than it had been when she’d steeled herself for strength outside the cell moments before. And certainly, the emotion prodded at her, urging her to touch the man. To taste the man—

With a sharp jerk of her head, Anahita realized where her thoughts had led. So
that
was what made lust so dangerous.

Before she could have another thought, the man she’d been perusing swung around and began pacing toward her. Her eyes flew to his face, a part of her rejoicing that she would now know what her Temptation looked like.

The first thing she noticed was his vicious scowl, an expression that seemed to match his clenched fists and tight shoulders. When the thrashing man on the cot screamed yet again, her Temptation’s eyes squeezed shut as his chest billowed up and down. That was when she noticed the scar.

Her fingers fluttered across her lips as she struggled to stay silent. Her Temptation’s exquisite face was carved mercilessly. A thick, raised scar slashed the entirety of his features, gruesomely bisecting them.

Oh, Most High
. Anahita’s brows shot together as her mind raced through reasons he would be scarred. It didn’t make sense; he was immortal. He had eaten the fruit from the Tree of Eternal Life. A scar like this would have been healed if he had sustained it before eating the fruit. And after the fruit, his body would never have allowed such a thing to heal—or rather, not heal—in such a manner.

The blond man screamed once more, and as the tormenting screech reached its peak, it wavered and cut off. When the air was still, Anahita’s Temptation relaxed and opened his eyes.

This time, there was no preventing it. A horrified gasp escaped her as Anahita observed his right eye, the one that had been sliced. Everything fell into place.

Her gaze darted to his left eye. It was the color of rich, tilled earth: fathomless and warm. But his right eye—his right eye was nearly colorless. The thick scars on his upper and lower eyelids framed a cornea of the lightest gold, as though the color had leaked from his eye when he sustained the injury.

This was most definitely done to him after he had eaten the fruit from the Tree of Eternal Life. He would not have survived otherwise. Those vile humans, who had first coerced these men into eating the fruit and then imprisoned them for it, had used the second tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, to scar him permanently—probably by administering the fruit’s juice to a blade and then holding him down and slicing through his face.

Bile rose in Anahita’s throat, and she audibly gagged.

Her Temptation froze, and Anahita silently cursed her weak control. She must remain silent. She was invisible, but any sound she made could be heard by all three of the humans in this cell.

Her Temptation’s eyes were roving over the walls as though he sensed someone was in the cell with them. Anahita ruffled her feathers as she shrank into the corner as far as she could. Her heart began to thunder once more as that mismatched gaze got closer and closer to her hiding spot. She tried to reassure herself that he couldn’t see her, but those eyes fixed directly on her and stayed.

Anahita felt her shoulders curling up toward her ears. Something was not right here. Surely he couldn’t see her.

Her Temptation straightened and cocked his head to the side as his brow furrowed. Anahita heard a breath puff from his nose, and then her Temptation’s hand rose to rest over his heart for a moment before it slowly, so slowly, continued its journey. He covered his right eye with his palm, and she could tell by the way his spine straightened that he had somehow seen her with the eye he now covered.

A rough sound burst from her Temptation’s chest, and he jerked his hand away, piercing her with that golden stare. “Luke.” The name rolled from his lips in the most delicious rumbling bass voice Anahita had ever heard, and the red-haired man sitting on the cot turned his head to look at Anahita’s Temptation. With a shaking hand, her Temptation pointed directly into the corner where Anahita huddled. “Do you fucking see that?” he asked.

Oh, not good
. Anahita panicked as the redhead—Luke—turned his head and squinted into her corner. Luke’s eyes relaxed, and then his head turned back to her Temptation. “See what, man?” he asked, his voice low and concerned.

“A woman,” her Temptation said. “With Goddamned wings.” Shocked silence met this declaration as Luke’s head swung back to the corner. But her Temptation wasn’t done yet. He sighed and whispered, “She’s beautiful.”

She saw the look of utter panic that crossed Luke’s face before he turned to face her Temptation once more. “Max,” Luke said, “you see a woman?”

Instead of answering,
Max
—Anahita felt a thrill at learning her Temptation’s name—once more stroked the center of his chest with an open palm. “So beautiful,” he repeated.

Another emotion, powerful and nameless, flooded Anahita’s belly, nearly causing her to moan. Her Temptation thought she was beautiful. Her lips parted, and she clutched at the stone behind her with numb fingers so she wouldn’t run to him. Wouldn’t trail her fingers up his arm as she wanted to. Wouldn’t replace the hand rubbing his chest with her own.

“Max!” Luke said his name so sharply Anahita jumped. Max’s eyes flicked over to Luke and then back to her. Luke must have taken that as permission to continue, because he asked haltingly, “Did you …
hear
anything? When you saw her?” Silence reigned while Anahita grew more confused. “Max,” Luke continued, “did what happen to Oliver happen to you?” Luke stood from the cot and clenched and unclenched his fists fitfully. “Come on, Max, talk to me.”

Max’s eyes finally drifted from Anahita’s, and he looked at Luke for a few moments before nodding once.

Even in the dim light, Anahita saw all of the blood drain from Luke’s face. Anahita felt her eyes ping back and forth between the two men as she caught her Temptation staring at her once again.

The expression on Luke’s face continue to grow more horrified. “Max,” Luke said weakly. The next thing Anahita knew, Luke’s face was no longer colorless and wane. An animal-like bellow rent the air, startling Anahita’s eyes back to Luke, and she turned her head just in time to see him launch himself toward the corner where she hid. He crashed into the wall to her left, his fists flying into the stone. “You will
not
do this to him, too,” Luke snarled as he continued to pummel the stone, working his way toward the corner when his fists found nothing.

It was so startling that Anahita lost her grip on her invisibility. The moment she did, Luke’s eyes snapped to her. They widened. “You’re real,” he breathed. In the next second, the man had redirected his attack, his hands snarled and reaching for her.

Anahita was too flustered to return to invisibility, or to sink through the wall and escape, but as it turned out, she did not need to.

Luke’s renewed attack snapped Max from his stupor. “You don’t touch her,” Max shouted, running across the cell and tackling Luke into the wall before Luke could wrap his fingers around her throat.

The men grappled together, wrapping their arms around each other and slamming against the wall again and again. The rage pouring off of them took Anahita aback, and she cringed further into the corner, dodging the flailing limbs of the men.

In the jumble of her emotions—the ones she should not be feeling—she could not determine why Luke was so angry and why that anger was directed toward her. But Luke’s anger was no match for Max’s, who was functioning on a level she had never seen before in a human.

When Max tackled Luke to the ground and slammed the other man’s head into the unforgiving stone, Anahita jolted forward. “Stop this,” she said too softly to be heard through the two men’s grunts. But the sound of her voice worked on Max like a balm. He dropped Luke so rapidly, the other man’s head hit the ground once more with a
thunk
that made Anahita wince.

Max’s face turned immediately toward her, and his eyes—the deep brown and otherworldly gold—roved over her face and body before returning to her eyes. She felt the quick perusal of her body as though it had been a caress, and she took a stumbling step toward him, her sandals scuffing on the rough stone floor and bringing Luke’s gaze to her as well, though his was slightly unfocused.

Luke’s eyes widened, and Anahita ruffled her wings in a defensive gesture she could not prevent. “Oh,” Luke breathed, his eyes focusing more each moment. “A-angel?” he stuttered.

• • •

Max straddled Luke’s chest and had to fight with each of his billowing breaths not to continue the beating that Luke so desperately deserved for even thinking of harming his winged stranger. No one—
no one
—would ever harm her. She was his.

The moment he’d seen her, the Voice that sometimes spoke to them all—part instinct, part conscience—whispered
The One
to him. It was a two-word phrase that he, Luke, and Oliver were very familiar with as it was what had started Oliver’s torment.