Redeeming Angel (8 page)

My vision started to turn red, a
humming ricocheting between my ears.

“
Chase, focus. This is what
you want.” Her voice had a hypnotic texture, smooth and bewitching.
It was a technique I knew well. Compulsion.

“
I
am
focused… On ripping your head
off.” Full possession was right around the corner. Everything was
seen through an enflamed haze, and it clicked. Kira was causing
this little unbridled outburst inside of me. She was doing
something to pull my demon forth, and I had walked right into it
like a good, obedient puppy.

“
Well, I can see this is
going nowhere.” She stood up and flashed in front of me, nothing
more than a quick blink. Her eyes bathed the room in a reddish
glow.

A flare of rage rose up and snatched
me. “You made an epic mistake,” I managed to mumble. Kicking Kira’s
ass wasn’t part of the plan. But plans changed. I was a flexible
kind of guy.

“
I don’t make mistakes.
Humans do.” Then the bitch hit me. Not a girly kind of hit either.
She punched like Muhammad Ali.

My head snapped back; a hammering
thundered and rattled my brain. As stars danced behind my eyes all
I could think was this was bad, but my brain never really caught up
with the precarious situation I was in. At the mercy of a demon was
no place I ever thought I would find myself.

Damn. I really hate
demons.

It all went black.

{Angel
}

The room wafted with Channel perfume
and Kors leather. A pair of snakeskin print Jimmy Choo’s came into
view and stopped just outside my cell. “I wondered when you would
show your face, blondie,” I said, not bothering to get
up.

“
Angel?” Lexi hesitated,
tiptoeing closer.

I rolled to my side, looking at her
for the first time. “What took you so long? I thought we were BFFs
and shit.” I was getting tired of pretending to be the “good”
Angel, and I was seriously sick of these four walls.

“
They wouldn’t let me see
you.” So much emotion in that tiny voice.

“
What a pathetic excuse. I
thought you cared about me.”

“
I do care. You know I do.”
Tears clogged her aqua eyes like a turbulent sea. “You’re the only
real friend I’ve ever had.”

Ah. Break my heart. I thought I was
going to barf something rancid. “Then help me. I can’t stay here
another night. Lexi, look at me. That awesome tan I used to have.
Gone. Now my skin looks like Dumbo’s.”

Her eyes ran over my pathetic
appearance. “You really do need a facial and some vitamin B. Don’t
get me started on your hair. If I knew what wretched conditions
they were keeping you in, I would have…”

“
What? Brought in a team of
stylists?”

The small dingy space did nothing to
dull her sparkle. “I can see your love for clothes and beauty
hasn’t changed. That’s encouraging.”

Whatever helped her sleep at night.
She was clinging onto hope her friend was still in this body. It
was false hope, but I didn’t want to crush her poor little spirits.
“God, you make me sound like a monster.”

She wrinkled her button nose. “Well,
you kind of went crazy.”

“
Disappointed? Don’t care.
If you came to see your BFF, she’s gone out for the evening.”
Sitting up, I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my bare feet
hitting the chilly concrete. “But maybe we could be
friends.”

She shook her pretty blonde hair, so
perfect, not a hair out of place. “I didn’t want to believe them.
Chase is totally stressed out. I’ve never seen him like that. He’s
out there, putting himself in harm to try to find a way to cure the
darkness.”

The little wheels in my corrupted mind
started to turn. What was he up to? “And if there is no
cure?”

She angled her neck to the side,
analyzing my face. “I don’t think I will ever get used to your
eyes.”

I blinked.

A glare of sadness crossed her face.
“You of all people should know Chase isn’t about to take no for an
answer.”

I would have to have the world’s most
determined boyfriend on the planet. “Right,” I said, tapping a
finger on my dry bottom lip.

“
Here…” Lexi dug into the
pocket of her skinny jeans, pulling out something small. “You look
like you could use this.” She rolled a tube of lip gloss under the
bars.

Stepping on it with my foot, I bent
down and picked it up, rolling it between my fingers. A quick flash
of another life flickered through my memory. There one second and
gone the next. “Thanks, but I don’t think having moist lips is
going to help me.”

“
Well, maybe this will.”
She turned and grabbed something off the floor. “I brought you
coffee, too. It’s from Starbucks.”

Suddenly, my taste buds perked up.
Boycotting food sucked. “Peppermint mocha?” I asked, eyeing the cup
in her hand.

“
Of course. It’s still
warm.” She slipped the green and white cup through the bars,
careful not to let them touch her elegant skin.

I whizzed off the bed, taking a long,
deep swig. Demon or human, the appreciation for sugar infused
coffee was real. “Hmm. Better than I remember,” I said, licking my
lips, eyes fluttering open.

“
Travis said you’re
refusing to eat. They wouldn’t let me see you,” she
said.

“
Travis has never brought
me Starbucks. How did you find me if they won’t allow you to see
me?”

“
My brother isn’t as smooth
as he thinks he is or as cautious as Chase.” She shrugged. “I
followed them. He’s always underestimating me.”

Hmm. And maybe I had as well. My hand
shot through the cage, capturing her wrist. “Please help me.
Please, Lexi. I can’t stay inside here another second. I’ll lose my
mind.” I forced my eyes to well, though it was getting harder and
harder to draw out tears. Dehydrated, I was sure.

“
I want to help you. It
kills me to see you like this. But Chase—”

“
Doesn’t have to know,” I
interjected. “I just want five minutes to feel the sun on my face.
I promise. No funny business. I would never do that to you. You’re
the only one who hasn’t treated me like a monster.”

“
Five minutes?” she
repeated.

I nodded.

Her hand went to one of the many
locks, and I held my breath.

Chapter 8

{Chase
}

I awoke with a start, and a razor edge
of pain sliced through my head. Wincing, I lifted a hand to my
forehead, expecting there to be a big, nasty cut. It felt okay,
just achy and sore, but otherwise okay, which was not something I
could say about my current predicament.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of
my car, completely wrong in itself. No one drove my car, and
certainly not Kira.

Shitbucket.

The cunning demon had even strapped me
in. How considerate. Yet, I was feeling anything but.

A mess of emotions ranging from anger
to confusion collided in my stomach as I recalled how she had
knocked me out. That was a first. A demon getting the jump on me,
and she was female. Not my brightest moment. If Travis had seen it…
I never would have been able to live it down.

I took stock. The demon inside me
wasn’t beating to break free, and the pressure that had been
clamping down on my chest was slowly lifting, degree by slow
degree. And that meant only one thing—we were headed back to
Illinois.

The dream!

Lexi.

It might have only been just that—a
dream—but I was done leaving things to chance. When it came to
Angel and me, our connection hardly ever made sense. I wouldn’t
disregard the idea that it had morphed into our subconscious. Who
knew the counter effects we were dealing with when it came to the
kind of darkness breathing inside her?

I could only hope I wasn’t too late
and my cousin wasn’t having a blonde moment. She wouldn’t really
let Angel out—so I kept telling myself—but the truth was Lexi had a
heart softer than mine. If it was difficult for me, it was going to
be harder for Lexi.

“
It’s about time, Sleeping
Beauty,” Kira said, interrupting my thoughts. One hand on the
wheel, she drove the car expertly with her other hand hanging out
the window, platinum hair blowing carelessly in the
wind.

“
Stop the car,” I demanded
in a gravelly tone. Being confined in a car on a road trip with the
very thing I loathed was certainly not something I ever thought to
experience.

No surprise she ignored me. “We’re not
there yet, and you’ve already wasted too much time
snoring.”

“
Yeah well, whose fault is
that?” I grumbled, shifting forward in my seat.

A hint of a smirk appeared on her
lips. “I had no choice. You were about to lose it. I did you a
favor, getting you out of town.”

I scoffed. “Demons never do
favors.”

“
True. You have something I
want, and…I might know a way to save your kynt.”

“
Kynt? Is that some kind of
demon gibberish?” I wasn’t about to promise a demon
squat.

“
It is a very old word for
the bond that exists between you and Angel. The three points of
Triplici.” The way the words rolled off her tongue made me wonder
how old Kira was. There was an ancient quality in her voice she
tried to hide, but it was ever present when she spoke words no
longer used.

“
You mean the Triforce?” I
questioned with twisted lips.

“
Is that what you are
calling it? Cute.”

I rolled my eyes. “What is it you want
from me? I’m not in the mood to spend the next hours swapping life
stories.” If anything, I wanted to get as far away from her as
possible. Being near Kira was making my skin itch.

We approached a bend in the
road. As she took a turn twenty miles too fast, I reached up,
steadying myself on the fabric ceiling. It was then I caught a
glimpse of a mark on the inside of her wrist.
Her
demon mark. I felt as if I was
free-flying from the sky, my stomach in my throat, and when I hit
the ground, the force took my breath away, leaving me
rattled.

The mark was one I knew well. My gaze
tapered, and the conversation we’d had in my room about Lexi and
Travis rushed back. “How is it you’ve sired children?” I asked, my
heart thundering in my ears.

Her eyes took on a volcanic ember. “I
told you I’m different. Whereas most female demons cannot carry a
child to full term, I have not once, but twice.”

A strand of cuss words left my lips. I
thought I was going to be sick. It suddenly became very clear just
what she wanted from me.

Kira was their mother.

That bitch.

Outrage. It wasn’t an emotion I felt
often, but to know this—there wasn’t a name foul enough to describe
what I was feeling. My hands gripped the sides of the leather seat,
followed by the shredding of material echoing in the car. My gut
reaction was to burn Kira until she was nothing but ash blowing in
the wind.

Teeth barred, my chin jutted out, eyes
glowing like burning coals. “If you think I would let you harm my
cousins, then you are sadly mistaken.”

Her eyes countered mine. “It is you
who is mistaken, Chase Winters. I mean them no harm.”

I laughed sharply. “Excuse me if I
don’t believe you.”

“
I would be concerned if
you weren’t suspicious.”

The new car scent air freshener
dangling from the rearview mirror perfumed the interior, making my
already upset stomach roll. “You’ve given me nothing. No answers.
And no reason to trust you.” Not that I ever would.

“
It’s a good thing we have
a long trip ahead of us. Plenty of time to talk.”

The thing was I hadn’t planned on
spending the entire ride back with this demon in the driver seat.
While she was blabbing and taunting me, I was thinking of ways to
rid myself of her, but not before I got what I wanted. I had to
find a way without giving up anything about Lexi and
Travis.

“
So talk,” I said, folding
my arms and staring out the window, barely seeing the dry land
covered in sand and red rock formations whip by.

She clucked her tongue. “Not so quick.
If I give you the information you seek, I am going to need my own
assurances.”

“
What is it you want from
me?”

“
Just a favor when I need
it,” she said.

An open favor to a demon, to be called
in whenever her little heart desired. Every fiber in my body was
screaming no. But what choice was there? Only one.

Her head angled as she eyed me. “Deal
or no deal?”

What was she, a gameshow junkie? I
gave a reluctant nod.

“
You don’t honestly think I
would just take your word. Surely, you know that is not how demon
deals work.”

Oh, I knew well enough about making a
deal with Hell. I just had never been dumb enough to strike
one.