Silence (26 page)

“Let me worry about that.”

Hank considered Jev with a discriminating eye. “All right,” he said at last. “I’m intrigued.” A careless shrug. “I’m not the one who stands to lose. I take it you’d have me swear an oath?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jev said coolly.

Drawing the dagger once again from the waist of his pants, Hank made a slash across the palm of his left hand. “I swear my oath to let the girl live. If I break my vow, I plead that I may die and return to the dust from which I was created.”

Jev accepted the blade and sliced his hand next. Making a fist, he shook loose a few drops of a bloodlike substance. “I swear to feed you all the information I can on what fallen angels are planning. If I break my vow, I will voluntarily lock myself in the chains of hell.”

The two of them clasped hands, mingling their blood. By the time they pulled free, their wounds had healed perfectly.

“Keep in touch,” Hank said with irony, dusting his shirt as though being in the shed had somehow sullied him. He raised his cell phone to his ear, and when he caught Jev watching, he explained, “Making sure my car is ready.”

However, when he spoke into the phone, his words adopted a hardened undertone. “Send my men in. All of them. I want the girl taken away.”

Jev went still. Even as the sound of running feet approached the shed he said, “What’s this?”

“I swore an oath to let her live,” Hank informed him. “
When
I release her is up to me—and you. She’s yours after you’ve given me enough information to guarantee I can overthrow fallen angels by Cheshvan. Consider Nora insurance.”

Jev’s eyes flicked to the shed door, but Hank interjected smoothly, “Don’t go down that road. You’re outnumbered twenty to one. We’d both hate to see Nora needlessly injured in a scuffle. Play this smart. Hand her over.”

Jev grabbed Hank’s sleeve, jerking him close. “If you take her away, I will see to it that your corpse fertilizes the ground we’re standing on,” he said, his voice more venomous than I’d ever heard it.

Nothing in Hank’s expression hinted at fear. If anything, he appeared almost smug. “My corpse? Is that my cue to laugh?”

Hank opened the shed door, and his Nephilim men thundered in.

Just like a dream, Jev’s memories ended almost before they began. There was a moment of disorientation, and then the granite studio came into focus. Jev stood silhouetted against the candlelight. The flame gave just enough illumination to bring a severe glint to his eyes. A dark angel indeed.

“Okay,” I whispered, haunted by a sensation of lingering vertigo. “Okay … then.”

He smiled, but his expression was uncertain. “Okay then? That’s it?”

I turned my face up to his. I could hardly look at him the same way. I was crying without realizing I’d started. “You made a deal with Hank. You saved my life. Why would you do that for me?”

“Angel,” he murmured, clasping my face between his hands. “I don’t think you understand the lengths I would go to if it means keeping you here with me.”

My throat choked with emotion. I couldn’t find words. Hank Millar, a man who’d stood quietly in the shadows for years, was now revealed to have given me life, only to try to end it, and Jev was the reason I was alive. Hank Millar. The man who’d stood in my house on numerous occasions, as if he belonged. Who’d smiled and kissed my mom. Who’d spoken to me with warmth and familiarity—

“He kidnapped me,” I said, piecing it all together. I’d suspected it before, but Jev’s memories filled in the gaps with shocking clarity. “He swore the oath not to kill me, but he held me hostage to make sure you were motivated to spy for him. Three whole months. He strung everyone along for
three whole months
. All to get his hands on information about fallen angels. He let my mom believe I was as good as dead.”

Of course he had. He’d proven he had no qualms when it came to getting his hands dirty. He was a powerful Nephil, capable of an arsenal of mind-tricks. And after dumping me in the cemetery, he’d used them to keep my memories far, far away. After all, he couldn’t release me and have me shouting his diabolical deeds to the world.

“I hate him. Words can’t express how angry I am. I want him to pay. I want him dead,” I said with hardened resolution.

“The mark on your wrist,” Jev said. “It’s not a birthmark. I’ve seen it twice before. On my old Nephil vassal, a man named Chauncey Langeais. Hank Millar also has the mark, Nora. The mark links you to their bloodline, like an outward expression of a genetic marker or DNA sequence. Hank is your biological father.”

“I know,” I said, shaking my head with bitterness.

He laced his hand in mine, brushing a kiss across my knuckles. I was acutely aware of the pressure of his mouth, little tingles swimming under my skin. “You remember?”

“I heard myself say it in the memory, but I must have already known. I wasn’t surprised; I was
angry
. I don’t remember when I first knew it.” I pressed my thumb into the mark slashing my inner wrist. “But I feel it. There’s a disconnect between my mind and my heart, but I feel the truth. They say when people lose their vision, their hearing becomes sharper. I’ve lost part of my memory, but maybe my intuition is stronger.”

We considered this in silence. What Jev didn’t know was that my true parentage wasn’t the only piece of information my intuition was making a judgment on.

“I don’t want to talk about Hank. Not right now. I want to talk about something else I saw. Or rather, I should say something I discovered.”

He regarded me with equal parts curiosity and wariness.

A deep breath. “I learned that I was either crazy in love with you, or putting on the best performance of my life.”

His eyes remained carefully guarded, but I thought I saw a flicker of hope. “Which one are you leaning toward?”

Only one way to find out.
“First, I need to know what happened between you and Marcie. This is one of those times when giving me full disclosure is in your best interest,” I warned. “Marcie said you were her summer fling. Scott told me she played a role in our breakup. All that’s missing is your version.”

Jev stroked his chin. “Do I look like a summer fling?”

I tried to picture Jev playing Frisbee at the beach or lathering up in sunscreen. I tried to imagine him buying Marcie ice cream on the boardwalk and patiently listening to her endless chatter. Any way I tried it, the image brought a smile to my face. “Point taken,” I said. “So spill.”

“Marcie was an assignment. I hadn’t gone rogue yet; I still had my wings, which made me a guardian angel, taking orders from the archangels, and they wanted me to keep an eye on her. She’s Hank’s daughter, which equates to danger by association. I kept her safe, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I’ve done my best to put the memory behind me.”

“So nothing happened?”

His mouth tipped up slightly. “I almost shot her once or twice, but the excitement ends there.”

“Missed opportunity.”

He shrugged. “There’s always next time. Still want to talk about Marcie?”

I held his steady gaze, shaking my head no. “I don’t feel like talking,” I confessed quietly.

I rose to my feet, pulling him up with me, a little dizzy from the audacity of what I was about to do. I was all slippery emotions inside, able to grasp only two of them. Curiosity, and desire.

He held perfectly still. “Angel,” he said roughly. He stroked his thumb across my cheek, but I pulled back slightly.

“Don’t rush this. If there’s any memory of being with you left inside me, I can’t force it.” That was half the truth. The other half I kept to myself. I’d been secretly fantasizing about this moment since I’d first seen Jev. I’d created a hundred variations of it in my head since then, but my imagination had never come close to making me feel the way I did right now. I felt an irresistible draw, luring me closer, closer.

No matter what happened, I didn’t ever want to forget how it felt with Jev. I wanted to imprint his touch, his taste, event the scent of him so solidly inside me that no one—
no one
—could take them away from me.

I slid my hands up his torso, memorizing every ripple of muscle. I inhaled the same scents I had that first night in the Tahoe. Leather, spice, mint. I traced the planes of his face with my fingers, curiously exploring his sharp, almost Italian features. All through this Jev didn’t move, enduring my touch with his eyes closed. “Angel,” he repeated in a strained voice.

“Not yet.”

I spread my fingers through his hair, feeling it flutter through them. I committed every last detail to memory. The bronzed shade of his skin, the confident line of his posture, the seductive length of his eyelashes. He wasn’t clean lines and perfect symmetries, and I found him even more interesting for it.

Done stalling,
I told myself at last. Leaning in, I closed my eyes. His mouth opened under mine, his tightly reined control shuddering through his body. His arms wrapped around me, securing me against him. He kissed me harder, and the depth of my response unnerved me.

My legs felt wobbly and heavy. I sank into Jev, and he backed us slowly down the wall until I came to straddle his lap. Brightness lit up inside me, and the heat of it consumed every hollow corner. A hidden world opened between us, one that was as frightening as it was familiar. I knew it was real. I’d kissed like this before. I’d kissed
Patch
like this before. I couldn’t remember calling him anything but Jev, but somehow Patch just felt … right. The hot deliciousness of being with him came roaring back, threatening to swallow me whole.

I pulled away first, trailing my tongue along my lower lip.

Patch made a low, questioning sound. “Not bad?”

I bent my head toward his. “Practice makes perfect.”

M
Y EYES FLUTTERED OPEN AND THE ROOM
took shape. The lights were off. The air was cool. The most luxurious and delicious fabric caressed my skin. The memory of last night came back to me in a whirlwind. Patch and I had made out… . I vaguely recollected muttering something to him about being too exhausted to drive….

I’d fallen asleep at Patch’s.

I wrestled myself up to sitting. “My mom is going to kill me!” I
blurted to no one in particular. For one thing, it was a school night. For another, I’d missed curfew by a mile and never bothered to call and explain why.

Patch sat in a chair in the corner, his chin propped on his fist. “Already taken care of. I called Vee. She agreed to vouch for you. The story she gave your mom is that the two of you were at her house watching the five-hour version of
Pride and Prejudice
, you lost track of time, you fell asleep first, and rather than wake you up, Vee’s mom agreed to let you sleep over.”

“You called Vee? And she agreed, no questions asked?” It didn’t sound like Vee at all. Especially the new Vee, who’d developed a death wish for the male race in general.

“It might have been slightly more difficult than that.”

His enigmatic tone clicked in my brain. “You
mind-tricked
her?”

“Between asking permission and begging forgiveness, I lean toward the latter.”

“She’s my best friend. You can’t mind-trick her!” Even though I was still angry at Vee for lying about Patch, she must have had her reasons. And while I didn’t approve, and intended to get to the bottom of it very, very soon, she meant the world to me. Patch had crossed a line.

“You were exhausted. And you looked peaceful sleeping in my bed.”

“That’s because your bed has some kind of spell on it,” I said, less testily than I intended. “I could sleep here forever. Satin sheets?” I guessed.

“Silk.”

Black silk sheets. Who knew how much they’d cost? One thing was certain, they had a hypnotic quality I found very distracting. “Swear you won’t
ever
mind-trick Vee again.”

“Done,” he said easily, now that he’d gotten away with it. Beg forgiveness sounded about right.

“I don’t suppose you have an explanation for why both Vee and my mom have consistently denied knowing you exist? In fact, the only two people who’ve confessed to remembering you at all are Marcie and Scott.”

“Vee dated Rixon. After Hank kidnapped you, I erased her memory of Rixon. He used her and put her through a lot of pain. He put everyone through a lot of pain. It was easier in the long run if I did my best to make everyone forget him. The alternative was letting your friends and family hang their hopes on an arrest that was never going to happen. When I went to wipe Vee’s mind, she put up a fight. To this day, she’s angry. She doesn’t know why, but it’s rooted inside her. Erasing someone’s memory isn’t as easy as it sounds. It’s like trying to pick all the chocolate chips out of a cookie. It’s never going to be perfect. Pieces get left behind. Unexplainable beliefs that feel compelling and familiar. Vee can’t remember what I did to her, but she knows not to trust me. She can’t remember Rixon, but she knows there’s a guy out there who caused her a lot of grief.”

It explained Vee’s suspicion toward guys and my instant aversion
to Hank. Our minds might have been wiped clean, but a few crumbs got left behind.

“Might want to cut her some slack,” Patch suggested. “She has your back. Honesty is a good thing, but so is loyalty.”

“In other words, let her off the hook.”

He shrugged. “Your call.”

Vee had looked me in the eye and lied without reservation. It wasn’t a light offense. But the thing was, I knew how she felt. She’d had her memory tampered with, and it wasn’t a good feeling. Vulnerable didn’t begin to describe it. Vee lied to protect me. Was I that different? I hadn’t told her a thing about fallen angels or Nephilim, and I’d used the same excuse. I could either hold Vee to a double standard, or I could take Patch’s advice and let it go.

“And my mom? Going to vouch for her, too?” I asked.

“She thinks I had something to do with your abduction. Better me than Hank,” he said, his tone cooling. “If Hank thought she knew the truth, he’d do something about it.”