PROLOGUE
It was fingertips folowing the curve of her spine that woke Vashti from slumber. She arched into the familiar touch with a purr of delight, a smile curving her lips as she floated up to total awareness.
“Neshama,” her mate murmured.
My soul. Just as he was hers.
With her eyes stil closed, she rol ed to her back and stretched, pushing her naked breasts up to Charron in deliberate provocation.
The velvet lash of his tongue across her nipple startled her, eliciting a gasp that dropped her back onto the mattress. Her eyes opened in time to see his beautiful y etched lips surround the hardened point and his cheeks hol ow on a deep, long suckle. She groaned, her body eagerly responding to the attentions of the man for whom she drew every breath.
She moved to clutch his golden head to her breast, but he straightened, making her aware that he stood beside the bed rather than lay upon it.
The sight of his ful y dressed body told her why he’d woken her.
Towering over her sprawled, bared body, he stared down at her with heated eyes. The fangs peeping through his wicked smile betrayed that he, too, had become aroused by the way he’d woken her.
Her heart raced at that smile. Her chest ached from the surfeit of emotion he inspired in her. She’d lost everything; at times she stil felt phantom twinges from the wings that had been severed from her back, but Char had fil ed the subsequent hole inside her. Now he was everything to her, the reason she rose every day.
“Save that thought,” he said in his richly resonant voice. “I’l sate your hunger when I return.”
Vash pushed up onto her elbows. “Where are you going?”
He finished strapping on the twin katana scabbards that crisscrossed his back. “We have a patrol that didn’t check in.”
“Ice’s?”
“Don’t start.”
She sighed, knowing how much time Char had invested in training the fledgling, but the kid couldn’t seem to fol ow orders.
Char glanced at her before securing a gun holster to his thigh. “I know you think he hasn’t demonstrated sufficient accountability.”
Swinging her legs off the side of the mattress, she said, “I don’t just think it. He’s proven it. Over and over again.”
“He wants to please you, Vashti. He’s ambitious. Ice doesn’t leave his posts to play. He leaves because he thinks he can be more valuable elsewhere. If an opportunity to impress you presents itself, he’l make the attempt. He’s probably tracking a rogue now or trying to eavesdrop on lycans.”
“I’d be impressed if he fol owed commands without insubordination.” Standing, Vash stretched, then sighed as her mate came to her and stroked his elegant hands down the sides of her torso. “And he’s pul ing you out of our bed. Again.”
“Neshama, someone has to pul me from it. Otherwise, I would never leave it.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into the leather vest that hugged his lean chest. Breathing him in, she thought again that he was worth fal ing for. If she could relive making the choice between her wings and her love for Charron, she would have no doubts or hesitation about repeating her “mistake.” The curse of vampirism was a smal price to pay to have him. “I’m coming with you.”
Tilting his head, he pressed his cheek to her crown. “Torque says no.”
“Not his cal to make.” She pul ed back, her eyes narrowed. Torque was Syre’s son, but she was the Fal en leader’s lieutenant. When it came to the Fal en and their minions—col ectively, vampires—only Syre could gainsay her. Even Char had to take orders from her, which he did graceful y for a man who commanded others by nature.
“He has a demon problem.”
“Damn it. He should be able to take care of it.” Yes, hunting the demons who preyed on vampires was her job. No one was better at it than she was, but she couldn’t be everywhere al the time.
“She’s another one of Asmodeus’s.”
“Of course she is. Damn it. Three times in two weeks? He’s fucking with us.” That changed things up. Taking down a demon in the direct line of a king of hel was a bit more political y involved. Vash had a reputation for being a wild card; she’d take the heat without casting as much of a shadow on Syre as his offspring would. And now she was pissed off enough to want to deal with it herself. They may have fal en, but they weren’t easy targets.
Char pressed a kiss to her forehead, then released her. “I’l be back before dark.”
“Before dark…?” A quick glance at the bedroom window and she understood. “It’s dawn.”
“Yeah.” His face was as grim as she knew hers must be.
Ice wasn’t one of the Fal en, as she and Charron were. He was a mortal who’d been Changed, which meant he was photosensitive. Regardless of his overeager nature, he should’ve checked in before sunrise. Now he’d have to hunker down somewhere until dusk came or Char found him, whichever came first. A few sips of Char’s potent Fal en blood would afford a temporary immunity that would get the errant minion home.
“Have you considered,” she began, pul ing back, “that it might be wise to let him stew it out? How wil he learn, if he never faces the consequences?”
“Ice isn’t a child.”
Vash shot him a look that chal enged that pronouncement. Ice might be nearly as broad and tal as her mate, but he lacked Char’s steely control, leaving him as impulsive as a kid. “I think you’re projecting traits onto him that he doesn’t have.”
“And I think it’s about time you trusted my judgment.” His returning gaze dared her to keep pushing.
It was a look no one else would even consider giving her, and not just because of her rank. While it goaded her obstinacy, she appreciated her mate’s wil ingness to confront her when he felt strongly about something. It was his ability to separate how he treated her as a superior officer and how he treated her as a woman that first stirred deeper feelings in her, during a time when the humanity she’d been sent to observe had begun to spread like a stain inside her.
She couldn’t pinpoint when her feelings for him had deepened. One day, Charron had been just another Watcher angel like her, one of the seraphim sent to earth to report on man’s progress to the Creator. The next, his smile had taken her breath away, and the sight of his powerful y graceful body had caused places low in her bel y to clench. His gilded beauty—his gold-and-cream-colored wings, his tawny skin and hair, and his piercing, flame blue eyes—had morphed from being a mere testament to the skil of the Creator to being an irresistible lure to her newly awakened feminine hunger.
Hiding her new awareness of him had been torturous, but she’d done it for a time, embarrassed by her mortal weakness and unwil ing to taint him with it. When he’d succeeded in cornering her, then seducing her, he’d taken her with white-hot determination, and she had fal en from grace into his arms with ful awareness of the consequences. She hadn’t shed a tear or made a sound when the avenging Sentinel angels had severed the wings from her back, turning her into the Fal en bloodsucker she was today. She had, however, begged and pleaded for mercy for Charron, and she’d cried the sobs of the heartbroken when they’d stripped him of his gorgeous wings, too.
His touch on her face brought her out of her memories, returning her to the present and the man whose eyes were now the gleaming amber of a soul ess vampire. “Where do you go,” he asked softly, “when you drift away from me like that?”
Her mouth curved on one side. “I was tel ing myself how stupid it is to be irritated by your compassion and desire to mentor when I fel in love with you for those very traits. Among many others.”
Char fisted his hand in her long hair, bringing the crimson strands to his lips. “I remember you in flight, Vashti. When I close my eyes, I can stil see you with the sun at your back, its light shining off your emerald feathers. You were a jewel to me, with your ruby hair and sapphire eyes. I ached whenever I saw you. The need to touch you, taste you, push inside you was a physical pain.”
“Poetry, my love?” she teased, although the levity in her tone was marred by the huskiness of deep emotion. He knew her so wel . Read her thoughts so easily. He was her other half, the best part of her. While she was temperamental and capricious, he was levelheaded and constant.
When she was impatient and easily frustrated, he was reassuring and forward thinking.
“You are far more valuable and desirable to me now than you were then.” His forehead dropped lightly to hers. “Because now you’re mine. Total y and completely. As I am yours. With al my faults and traits that annoy you.”
Catching him with a hand at his nape, she took his mouth in a deep, lush kiss that curled her toes and quickened her breathing.
“I love you.” The words were spoken against his lips, her hands clutching him with the strength of al the joy inside her. It was too much sometimes, overflowing and clogging her throat with tears of gratitude. She was embarrassed by the strength of her feelings for her mate. He was in her thoughts at nearly every waking moment and many of her sleeping ones as wel .
“I love you, my dearest Vashti.” He crushed her naked body to him. “I know you’ve given me considerable leeway with Ice, against your better judgment. I think it’s time I repaid you by listening to your counsel and reining him back.”
She adored that about him, too, his sense of fairness and ability to bend when appropriate. “You deal with him, I’l deal with Torque’s problem, and tonight we’l drop off the map for a couple days. We’ve both been working hard lately. We’ve earned a break.”
Wrapping his hand gently around her throat, he smiled. Eyes bright with sensual promise and affection, he murmured, “With an incentive like that, I’l make damn sure I’m home early.”
“We’l see how cooperative Ice is with that. He might have his ass hidden in the most out-of-the-fucking-way place imaginable.”
He arched a chastising brow for her ribbing, but vowed, “Nothing could keep me away.”
“Better not.” She turned away and wiggled her ass at him. “Neither of you wants me hunting you down…”
By noon, Vashti was sashaying into Syre’s office with a memento from her latest hunt in hand. The vampire leader wasn’t alone, but she felt no hesitation in interrupting. The woman with him was one of countless human females who’d caught Syre’s eye and lost it just as quickly. It didn’t matter if they were forewarned or not; they never believed he was completely unattainable until they experienced his dismissal firsthand. He was a passionate man, but physical enthusiasm was no sign of deeper interest. Syre had lost his wings for love, then he’d lost the woman he had given them up for.
“Syre.”
He glanced at her with the heavy-lidded gaze that drove women crazy. He stood with arms crossed and his hip canted into the short built-in bookcase behind his desk. Dressed in black tailored slacks and black silk tie paired with a crisp white dress shirt, he was both elegant and devastatingly attractive. His inky dark hair and warm, caramel-hued skin made him exotic in a way that was impossible to classify. Eastern European, some guessed. Syre had been favored once, much loved by the Creator. It was why, she believed, their fal had been punished so harshly—he’d had a very lofty perch to tumble from.
“Vashti,” he greeted, his voice as throaty and warm as whiskey. “Things go wel ?”
“Of course.”
The blonde who’d been overstaying her welcome shot daggers at Vash, as most of his lovers did. They mistook the connection between her and her superior officer as something far more than it was. Their relationship was personal and priceless, but it wasn’t intimate or romantic. Vash would give her life for Syre’s in an instant, but the love she bore him sprang only from respect, loyalty, and the knowledge that he would die as readily for her.
She gave the woman a sympathetic smile, but spoke bluntly, as was her way. “Don’t cal him; he’l cal you.”
“Vashti,” Syre admonished in a warning tone. He was too much of a gentleman to make the clean breaks that would spare him a lot of messy confrontations.
She didn’t have such qualms. “He wanted you, he had you, and you had a good time. There’s nothing else beyond that.”
“What are you?” the lovely blonde shot back. “His pimp?”
“No. That would make you a whore.”
“Enough, Vashti.” Syre’s voice cracked like a whip.
“You’re so jealous,” the blonde hissed, her perfect features contorting from her frustration and hurt. Her emotional spil age contrasted sharply with her pristine, perfect exterior. Her sleek chignon, fashionable pil box hat, and tidy feminine suit were so cool compared to her heated response. “You can’t stand that he’s with me.”
Sadly, the woman couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Vash would give up everything but Charron to see her commander happy again. If it would have made a difference to do so, she would have pointed out what a striking couple they made—the regal blonde and the debonair dark prince. But the heart Syre’s mortal wife had awakened in him had died along with her.
“I’m trying to save you from weeks of humiliating yourself,” Vash said as kindly as possible.
“Fuck you.”
“Diane,” Syre said firmly, straightening and moving to catch her by the elbow. “I’m sorry to have to end our pleasurable association so abruptly, but I can’t al ow anyone to speak to Vashti in that manner.”
Diane’s cornflower blue eyes widened and her painted mouth formed an astonished O. She stumbled along beside him as he led her out of the room. “But you al ow her to talk to me the way she did? How can you?”
