Redeeming Angel (16 page)

Two days had gone by.

And this was the first time I was
alone for more than five minutes. I needed it.

Often I found myself staring into
space for no good reason, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
They all worried, waiting to see if the darkness might rear its
ugly head. And who could blame them?

I clasped my arms around myself as if
I could protect myself from such a terrible invasion. The darker
Angel had been strong enough to manifest outside of me. What Chase
had done wasn’t a permanent solution. At least that was my
assumption. I finally admitted to myself what I hadn’t wanted to
believe. My soul wasn’t wiped clean. There were still tendrils of
blackness entwining around my soul. I could feel them—faint, but
they were there all the same.

It was the moments I caught myself
lost to time and space that I realized I needed to find a way to
overpower the darkness. Never again would I let it control me.
Chase, Lexi, and Travis all found ways to control their demons. I
would too.

Flattening my hand against the window,
I felt the rain pepper the glass. My eyes peered next door at the
Winters’ house. I didn’t have the heart to tell Chase and burden
him with another problem. Between Alastair and Kira, he had more
than his fair share of stress.

But Lexi…

She was strong—her control profound.
If anyone could teach me, it was Lexi. Secrets weren’t secrets for
long if Lexi knew, but this time, she was going to have to keep her
trap sealed or I would compel her. I hated sneaking around and
lying, mostly because I plain sucked ass at it, but also because it
wasn’t something I wanted to come between my relationships with the
people I cared about. Lies turned into more lies, until you found
yourself trapped in a web created by your own deception. Lies hurt.
They destroyed.

But a voice in my head told me this
one little white lie was to ultimately protect those I loved. And
it wasn’t as if I would never tell him. I would—after the demon
storm passed and I was able to handle the darkness.

I laid my cheek against the cool glass
and closed my eyes. The world faded—

—
Chase was in my room,
standing in front of me with eyes smoldering gold. A familiar
tingle of panic twisted in my gut. Demons. They weren’t just
nearby; they were here. In my room.

“
How did they get here?” I
gasped.

“
Demons aren’t bound by
physical laws, but unworldly,” Chase said, keeping his gaze glued
on the three demons that moseyed out from the shadows. “They come
and go in our realm as they please. Our marks allow us to do the
same. Their biggest problem is staying here, which is why they seek
us out first. Our life source allows them to stay here longer than
a human’s would.”

I understood what he was trying to
tell me. I could move like them, fight like them, because physical
laws no longer bound me. Change. My limbs trembled lightly at
first, then more noticeably.

Four more demons hissed
from behind the others, fourteen scarlet eyes radiating through the
room spotlighted on Chase and me.
Holy
freaking Christmas cake.

Confusion gave way to terrifying
panic. I hadn’t expected my first face time with demons since my
separation from Hell to be in my bedroom. It felt like an invasion
of my privacy, and I didn’t like it.

However much it irked me, it was
becoming clear I needed to zip up my big girl pants and fight.
Chase couldn’t save us alone, but how much help could I be if I
could barely stay upright? I don’t know what it was, but the sight
of demons in all their hideous glory, drooling on my carpet and
filling the room with their rancid stench, made me
woozy.

I checked myself, chin jutting in the
air.

Sparing me a quick glance from the
corner of his eyes, he asked, “You good?”

I nodded, at a loss for words.
Control. I needed to be in control right now, and caving to the
fear and self-doubt wasn’t going to help me.

Chase rushed headlong into battle like
a bowling ball striking the pins. Demons hit the ground. He twisted
around but wasn’t quite quick enough—out of character for Chase.
And my nightmare began. The demon brought his arm around Chase’s
neck, placing him in a brutal chokehold.

Hisss time hasss come to
an end
,
a ragged
voice whispered. I couldn’t tell which one spoke, as none of their
mouths moved.

Steeling myself, I whipped at him,
snarling. “Let him go, you asshole.”

Chase bent down, using the
momentum to send the demon behind him sailing through the
air.
Crash
. The
mirror above my dresser shattered to a gazillion pieces, glass
spraying over the room. His gaze narrowed as he straightened,
deflecting another bone-jarring punch, but it didn’t matter how
many blows he dodged. They were swarming around him like stink on
shit.

I ground my teeth and
forced myself into action. “I can do this. I can do this.” I spun,
whirling a kick in the air straight at what I thought was a
stomach.
Smack!

God that felt amazing. I wanted to do
it again. And again.

“
Angel, watch
out—”

I didn’t even register the impact
until I was on my back and my pain scale went from zero to ten in
seconds. The demon who had slammed his foot into my chest hovered
over me, grinning like a sadistic prick. To think, I had once upon
a time been able to command these creatures. It would have been a
pretty darn handy skill to have right about now.

Pushing up on my arms, I scooted my
butt across the floor until I bumped into my bed.

Must kill. Must have. Must
die.

Power. Taste
good.

Mine, all mine.

I feared the voices were in my head.
They stacked one on top of the other, loud and persistent. This
couldn’t possibly be the end. Chase and I had fought too hard, been
through too much to die like this, but the demons stalked, closing
in around me with their thoughts echoing in my head.

I wanted to crawl under the bed and
cover my ears.

Breaking free, Chase managed to circle
around and help me to my feet. If there had been time, I would have
given him props for such quick maneuvering. We stood shoulder to
shoulder as our uninvited guests closed in, nothing but my
full-sized bed between us.

“
Got any brilliant ideas?”
he asked.

“
I thought that was your
job.”

“
Yeah well, you won’t like
what I have in mind.” His eyes shifted to the window on our
left.

“
Probably not,” I stated
flatly. Knowing the way his mind worked, we were about thirty
seconds away from crashing through that window and dropping two
stories to the ground. I wasn’t too keen about having my brains
splattered over my yard.

I blinked. If I didn’t do something
quick, I was going to be picking glass out of my hair for weeks.
Squaring my shoulders, there was this sudden crackling under my
skin, traveling down my forearm. Shock held me immobile as I stared
down at my arms. Chase’s fingers spread over my hip, and as soon as
he touched me, a bolt of static radiated between us.

He snatched his hand back, scowling.
“What the hell?”

A white-hot blast of light shot from
my hands, the force shoving me backward. An explosion rippled
through the air, shaking the floorboards under my feet. Shit, it
shook the whole house. I hit the ground, my ears ringing and
fingertips burning. Plaster fell from the ceiling, chunks showering
the room. I thought the ceiling was going to come crashing down.
Demon arms flew one way and legs the other until they burst into
ash, raining over me.

Pain ruptured and rushed down my arms,
confusion swirling as I clutched my arms over my face to shield
myself from not only the blinding light, but also the
debris.

When the light finally fizzled out and
the dust settled, I started to crawl on my hands, calling out
Chase’s name. He never answered. And he never would.

Shaking my head incisively, I couldn’t
believe what I was seeing. His body lay at an awkward angle at the
foot of the bed. Blood pooled around his face, flowing freely from
his mouth. His eyes were open, a soft gray, but they lacked the
life I loved. The life I couldn’t live without. Chase was my rock.
Without him, I was lost in the world. I screamed. Again. And Again.
His name tearing from the depths of my soul—

Gasping, I jolted upright.
Panic cloaked me as my wild eyes scanned the surroundings, Chase’s
name lodged in my throat. I didn’t remember how I’d gotten here. Or
where
here
was…

I was in my bedroom, tucked into a
ball still sitting in front of the window. The sun was in the
process of rising, peeking through the ends of the blinds. My eyes
darted from corner to corner, covering every nook, my heart
pounding ferociously. There were no red eyes in the shadows. No
lifeless Chase sprawled on my floor. No blood. But my fingers were
tingling and the ends of my nightshirt were singed. “What the
hell?” I muttered.

Cold tremors rocked through me as I
lifted my cheek off the damp window. How had I gotten here? The
last thing I remembered was fighting, the voices, and Chase… Oh
God. He had been… I couldn’t even form the thought.

My heartbeat sped, my lungs
constricting. He was nowhere in sight, and I didn’t know if I
should be relieved or losing my mind. Scrambling off the window
seat, I went to grab my phone. Two frantic steps and familiar
sensations pricked at me. Something soft tickled my
hair.

“
Chase,” I whispered,
gazing into his silver eyes.

They twinkled like starlight.
“Angel.”

Even though I was trying to
push down the emotions, some of them eked through.
In
. I inhaled.
Out
. I exhaled.
In. Out.
I repeated over
and over until I was sure I was breathing again. “You’re
alive.”

“
What did I
miss?”

Nothing. Everything. A sudden burst of
happiness gathered inside me. I threw my arms around his neck,
burying my face into the front of his shirt. “I’m so glad you’re
here.”

His hands combed gently down the
length of my hair. “Where else would I be?”

“
Dead,” I mumbled,
shuddering.

“
I thought we had this
discussion. I’m not easy to kill.”

Very true, but he also
hadn’t had a nightmare so real it was hard to believe it hadn’t
happened. The demons. The explosion. And Chase.
Christ, Mary Mother, and Joseph.

It was my fault. The blast
of light had been what caused him to stop breathing. I had killed
Chase.
Me
.

He placed two fingers under my chin
and tilted my face back. “What’s going on, Angel Eyes? You woke up
screaming my name.”

“
Is that such a bad thing?”
I asked, using a pathetic attempt at humor to diffuse the very real
fear still throbbing inside me.

“
It wouldn’t be if you
didn’t sound like you were being murdered.”

“
Thanks for putting that
vivid image in my head. It was just a dream.”
Just a dream
, I echoed in my
head.
Not real.
Then I scoffed. “Scratch that. It was a nightmare.” Dreams
made me think about sugarplums and dancing fairies. What I
experienced was nothing short of horrifying.

“
Want to talk about it?” he
asked, his breath warm against my temple.

I picked at the sheets, avoiding his
eyes. “I don’t want to talk at all.” Even as the words left my
mouth, I knew he wasn’t going to like it. It was a total cop-out. I
knew it. He knew it. But if I started to talk about the dream, I
dreaded it would all unravel. All of it. The darkness. The
captivity. The helplessness. The urges. And then there was the
depth of my love for him. It scared me sometimes to love someone as
deeply as I loved Chase.

“
You’ve been saying that a
lot lately. Eventually, that excuse won’t be enough. You’re going
to have to tell me what’s going on.”

“
Eventually,” I murmured,
staring at his lips. Without thinking, I leaned over and pressed my
mouth tightly against his. There was only one thing that would
surely make me forget the nightmare, my fears, everything. And it
started with Chase’s lips.

He was surprised, but quickly gave in.
Wrapping me in his arms, he smelled insanely good, and his lips
burned hot against mine, working ferociously.

“
You’re overdressed,” I
said as my fingers pushed at the ends of his shirt, impatient with
the need to feel him. Seeing him dead, even in a dream, made me
want to feel him alive. And Chase never felt more alive than when
he was kissing me.

Warmth leapt into his face, softening
the lines around his amber eyes. “The wanting you. Does it ever
stop?”

Heat spiked, radiating in my eyes. “I
hope not.” There was a cord between our hearts, binding us
together, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.