Anger surged. Anger and hurt. “Damn you, Azriel, that was totally uncalled-for!”
I shouldered past him, blinking back ridiculous tears as I stepped over the dying embers of our swords’ fire. Damn it, far worse had been said to me over the years, so why would I let a comment like that get past the armor?
Because, my inner voice whispered, you care more than you should. More than is wise.
And he didn’t. Because he was energy rather than flesh and didn’t do emotions the same way the rest of us did. I knew that. Just as I knew his mission would always come first, no matter what. But the knowledge didn’t help ease the pain of that situation or this one.
I made it five steps past the flames before he caught my hand and stopped me.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I should not have said that.”
“No,” I answered, not turning around and still blinking furiously.
He hesitated. “I did not mean to hurt you.”
My smile held little humor. “If you didn’t intend to hurt, you shouldn’t have said the words.”
“I agree. Risa, please, look at me.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep, somewhat shuddering breath, then obeyed.
“I am sorry.” He wiped a lone tear from my cheek with his thumb. “It will not happen again.”
My gaze scanned his, but I could see nothing more than regret there. Whatever else he might be feeling or thinking, he was controlling it tightly. I sighed and rested my forehead against his shoulder.
“I’m afraid I can’t offer the same. If I think you’re going to die, Azriel, I’ll do what it takes to protect you. I can’t do anything else. I need you.”
And not just for protection.
He brushed a kiss across the top of my head. Warmth tingled through me, filling the spaces that had been so recently shivering under the force of his fury. “If dying is my fate, then so be it. I am here to do a job, Risa, and neither of us should forget that.”
“You can’t do that job if you’re dead.”
“As I have said, if death is my fate, then so be it. You are the important one in this equation. You and the keys.”
“And I’m only important because I’m the only way to those keys.” I snorted softly. “You know, if I did die, the world would be better off. No one would be able to find the keys or open hell’s portals.”
“If you think your father or the Raziq would stop searching simply because you were dead, you are sorely mistaken.” Azriel’s voice held a sharp edge. “Death cures nothing, Risa.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I pulled away from the comfort of his touch. “Let’s go back to the car. I need to go home.”
He released my hand and I walked out the door—only to run nose-first into an all-too-familiar chest.
“Speak of the devil and he arrives,” Azriel muttered.
I shot him a warning glance, then stepped back. If ever there was a man who was perfectly formed in every imaginable way, Lucian was it. He was truly beautiful to look at, and yet there was nothing effeminate about his looks or his presence. He was tall, towering over me by a good six inches, and his build was that of a warrior—muscular and strong.
He had the facial features of an angel, and in the past—before his golden wings had been torn off—he probably would have been mistaken for one. Because even though reapers were the true soul guides, it was the Aedh who were the source of the angel seen in so many myths. And like many of those mythical angels, he had golden hair and eyes that were the most glorious shade of jade, but his were so full of power that it was almost impossible to meet them without flinching.
Normally, my heart rate would have leapt into overdrive at the mere sight of him, but given my recent brushes with both my father and the Raziq, I couldn’t muster anything more than annoyance—though it was edged with a bit of suspicion.
“What are you doing here, Lucian?”
His eyebrows rose. “We haven’t seen each other for almost a week, and this is the greeting I get?”
“It is when you suddenly appear where you’re not supposed to be.”
“Last time I looked, this was a public train station, not a private one.” His expression was amused, despite the slight edge in his voice.
“You know what I meant.”
“I do.” His gaze ran past me. “So nice to see you again, reaper. And I can see by the bruises around Risa’s lovely neck that you’ve been doing an outstanding job of protecting her again.”
Azriel didn’t reply, but then, he didn’t have to. Even Lucian couldn’t have missed the sudden jump in air temperature. I wondered briefly just how dark Valdis’s flames were, but didn’t turn around to check.
“Stop avoiding the question, Lucian. Why are you here?”
He snorted softly. “You were here to meet your father, were you not? I thought I might be of some use—especially since the Raziq were likely to turn up and cause problems.”
“But how the hell did you know we were even going to be here? It’s not like we’ve been anywhere near each other recently, so you couldn’t have read it in my thoughts.”
The Aedh generally could read human—or non-human—minds only when they were in close proximity to them. However, they formed a strong mental link with their partners during the act of sex, enabling them to hear their thoughts from a distance.
That bond was—according to Lucian—somewhat inoperative between the two of us. In fact, he’d claimed he could read my thoughts only when he was physically making love to me. Whether that was true or not I had no idea. I trusted him, but no matter what Azriel might think, it wasn’t blind trust. I knew he had secrets. Knew they were more than likely dangerous ones.
“If you do not wish anyone to know where you are,” he said, “then you had better inform your friends of this fact.”
“Ilianna told you?” That surprised me. I would have expected a little more caution, even though she knew Lucian was involved in our quest for the keys.
“No. I was at your home waiting to see you, and the note from your father was lying in plain view on the table. If you didn’t want anyone to know where you were, you should have hidden the evidence.”
That was true enough, I guess. But I hadn’t thought it necessary to hide the note in the safety of our own home. Yet . . . something still niggled. And I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was disbelief or Azriel’s distrust flowing through the far reaches of my thoughts.
“Well, as it turns out, you’ve missed all the action.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“My father was less than impressed by the discovery that I have a tracker in my heart. He left the minute he sensed the Raziq’s approach.”
I stepped around him, then headed out of the station. He fell in step beside me. Azriel was a seething mass of annoyance that followed.
“And the Raziq? I venture they were not pleased by such an outcome.” His gaze raked me, and deep inside, desire stirred. Goddamn it, what was it about this man that called to me, even when I was annoyed with him? “Are they the reason you have the bruises?”
“No, they’re thanks to my father.” I stopped at the traffic lights and punched the button with a little more force than necessary. Who, exactly, I was more annoyed at I couldn’t say for sure—my father, the two of them, or myself for not being strong enough to tell Lucian to fuck off and leave me alone.
In fact, right now, I wished both of them—and the rest of the damn circus that had entered my life around the same time—would just go away and leave me in peace.
“Your father?” Surprise edged his tone. “Violence might be one of his mainstays, but it’s rarely unleashed when he still requires that person’s assistance.”
I gave him a long look. “And just how do you know that about my father?”
He snorted. “He’s a Raziq, is he not? They are rebels and outcasts for the precise reason that they do not conform to Aedh standards—not only in ideology, but in their very natures.”
He lies, Azriel said. There is more to his knowledge than what he claims.
Just as there’s more to your dislike than what you claim? I grouched back.
And yet I couldn’t dismiss his doubts, simply because I agreed with them.
“What you said sounded more like firsthand, personal knowledge than like a general statement about the Raziq.”
“I said I’d ask around about your father, and I have. Aedh numbers may place us on the verge of extinction, but that does not mean there are none in this city. Hieu is old even in Aedh terms, and not unknown.”
“All that sounds a little too convenient.”
“Sometimes the truth is.” He caught my hand and pulled me to an abrupt stop. “You know why I’m on this hunt. I want the Raziq.”
“I know—”
“No, you don’t,” he interrupted fiercely. “Because I don’t just want them dead. I want them burned from existence. I want them erased from the memory of the earth itself and their names never to be mentioned, even in the darkest whispers in the darkest of places.”
I stared at him, for the first time seeing the true extent of the anger and darkness in him. And I couldn’t help wondering just what he would do to get that revenge—and what he’d already done.
More than either of us currently suspects, Azriel commented.
Suspicion gains us nothing, I replied, despite the fact that my own thoughts were careening along the same line. And just because he wants the Raziq erased doesn’t mean he can’t be trusted. Hell, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind it one little bit if the Raziq no longer existed.
I returned my gaze to Lucian. “Last time we saw each other, you were intending to hunt down information about the tracker the Raziq placed in me. Is that why you were waiting at our place?”
The anger in him faded, but didn’t completely disappear. It remained in the edge in his voice, in the fierceness of his gaze.