Page 18

I wanted to scream, wanted to fight, but the angel’s impossible strength kept me pinned to his body as I thrashed under his grip.

He pulled us into an alleyway, deep into the shadows of darkness.

“Shhhh,” he hummed into my ear. “Your blood smells like cherries. The second they hear you, they’ll attack.”

I elbowed him in the ribs and thrashed out of his grasp, making a dash back into the street. I made it two steps before the angel wrapped an arm around my waist and hauled me backward, pinning my back against the crumbling wall with another hand on my throat.

Yeah, I fucking hated this male.

“Is this what gets you off?” I seethed. “Saving random females from getting their throats ripped out by bloodsuckers, only to use your brute strength against them while you do whatever you please?”

He bent down so his nose barely nuzzled my neck. I would have taken an assassin’s tongue for doing something that ignorant back at Phantom. It was a blatant show of power, of strength.

But he was vastly stronger than me. There wasn’t much I could do as he ran his thumb up and down the front of my throat.

“There are a lot of things I get off on, little fae. I could show you sometime if you’d like to see.”

Footsteps in the street came closer, followed by the gutted grunting of the vampyres around us. Four, maybe five, based on the number of steps. They usually traveled in groups, increasing their odds of feeding.

It was sick. Their insatiable need for blood, for the taste of flesh.

The angel leaned back and held a finger to his lips, motioning for me to be silent. I wanted to bite his damn finger off. I didn’t need him to save me. Him, or anyone else. I was a trained assassin, the deadliest fae in Midgrave.

I could kill all five bloodsuckers at the same time if I needed to.

But there I was, back against the crumbling stone in the depths of the shadows, wavering under the hands of this fallen angel.

The urge to kill took over, pulling me like a beacon toward the streets, toward the vampyres. If I could just get my knife up to his throat…

“Don’t even try it,” he hissed in my ear. “You clearly know nothing about killing my species.” He glanced behind me at the trees. “You seem to know plenty about getting yourself killed, though, after what I just witnessed.”

I shoved his chest. Hard. “Get away from me. I should gut you for putting a hand on me.”

He took a few steps back, and part of me wondered whether I actually had the ability to shove him, or if he was simply humoring me. “Gut me?” he repeated with a slight scoff. He crossed his arms over his chest, dropping his chin to look up and down dramatically with those piercing eyes. Again. “Careful, killer. I like my females violent, you know.”

“Shut up,” I hissed. The cool winter air now clung to my wet locks, my skin freezing with every breeze that blew past. “You’re lurking in the streets and hiding from the vampyres. What do you want with me?”

He raised a brow. “What makes you think I want something from you?”

“The fact that you’re still here!” I sputtered.

The corner of his mouth lifted, and all hells, I couldn’t deny that he was attractive. With his hood now pushed back, I couldsee his skin was dark and full of life, his black hair falling messily around his cut cheekbones. His eyebrows were thick, and they shaped those magnetic blue…

What was I doing?I lifted my knife and charged, aiming Venom directly at his chest.

The angel caught my wrist with no effort and pressed forward, backing me up once again, his hand pinning mine above my head. “Careful,” he sneered. “I bite.”

My back screamed in agony.

How thefuckdid this keep happening?

Angel boy had to go.

“Get out of my way before those vampyres slaughter this entire city,” I bit back.

“You mean what’sleftof this city? I hate to break this to you, but if I can hear and smell you,” he said, giving me a look that sank my stomach, “so can they.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but his massive black angel wings spanned the sides of him, sucking any unformed words from my mind.