Angel in Chains (The Fallen 3)

“Az!” She tried to shout out a warning to him, but the snarl of the motorcycle’s engine just ripped her cry away. Jade glanced back, her hands tightening on Az, but Bastion was gone.

“Is she gonna make it?” Tanner demanded as he stared down at the pale form on the bed.

A f**king angel. Tears had dried on her cheeks long ago. Her lips, trembling, were no longer breaking with cries of pain.

Her wings were gone. Cody was good, but the guy wasn’t a miracle worker. Her wings had been cut off, the skin on her back savaged. Cody had stitched her up, he’d drugged her so the pain would stop, but there wasn’t much else he’d been able to do.

Gone.

Tanner had known for years that his brother was a sadistic bastard, but . . . doing this? To an angel?

She lay on her stomach, with her face turned toward him. Thick, white bandages covered her back. He brushed his hand down her arm. He’d been touching her almost constantly, wanting to comfort the little blonde who’d bled and begged.

This shouldn’t have happened to her. This wasn’t her war.

It’s mine.

“She’ll heal,” Cody’s voice was quiet. “But from all the tales I’ve heard, those wings won’t be growing back.”

An angel’s skin could regenerate. Her torn muscles could mend. She’d recover from her blood loss. But, without her wings, she’d be trapped on earth.

“Az can give her his blood.” They’d be seeing the Fallen in just a few hours. “With his blood, she can—”

“We both know the blood loss isn’t going to kill her.” Cody glanced up with his pitch-black stare. Cody never bothered with glamour when it was just the two of them. Why pretend? Tanner knew exactly what his brother was.

He knew what both of his brothers were.

“His blood won’t make her wings grow back. Only a miracle can do that,” Cody said.

She looked so small. So weak. Not like some all-powerful immortal being right then.

Cody pulled out a pair of handcuffs from a black bag.

Tanner tensed. “What the hell are you doing with those?”

But his brother just reached for her right hand. “When she wakes up and shakes those drugs out of her system, she’s going to be pissed.”

“We saved her life! She’s not gonna be—”

“Our brother cut her wings off. He left her to die.” Cody snapped one cuff around her wrist and stretched her arm to lock the other end around the thin bedpost. “If she’s a Death Angel, all it will take is one touch to knock us both out of this world. You heard what Azrael said—we can’t let her touch us.”

Cody pulled out another set of cuffs.

“Since when do you carry around cuffs?” Tanner had a grip on her left hand, and he didn’t want to let go.

“They’re Other-proof, thanks to a sweet little voodoo queen I met in the bayou.” Cody held the cuffs loosely in his hand. “They’ll keep her hands off us until we can calm her down and help her to see reason.”

“Reason?” Tanner exhaled on a rough sigh and eased back so that Cody could snap the cuffs in place. “Our brother cut off her wings. There’s nothing reasonable in that.”

“No, there isn’t.”

Tanner straightened his shoulders. “You ever wonder . . . I mean, we’ve got the same blood. What if we—”

“Become twisted f**ks like him?”

He nodded.

“The day I do, that’s the day I want you to take me out.”

Tanner met Cody’s coal-black stare. He’d always known there was a darkness inside Cody. Demons and darkness went hand in hand.

“Promise me,” Cody said, voice thickening “and I’ll do the same for you.”

Take me out. “I promise.” He knew that if the time ever came, he’d be the one to kill Cody.

Just as he’d be the one to kill Brandt. His gaze fell back to the broken angel.

Sick bastard.

Then, whispering through his mind . . . I never want to be like him.

But the fear was always there, hiding in his head. Don’t want to be, but what if I am?

She expected Az to take her to some small shop in the Quarter. A place that promised magic and dreams with a dozen magic crystals and potions stocked in the windows.

But he drove past the Quarter and left the crowds of the city behind. Her gaze lit on the tossed beads as they headed out. Beads that dangled from lamp posts. Beads that had been shattered in the street.

Only a few more days of Mardi Gras madness were left. By the time the big party ended, what would her life be like?

Jade held tighter to Az as houses began to blur past them. Soon, the houses were gone, and she saw bigger buildings. Old warehouses. They crossed train tracks. Turned to the right. The left.

He braked the motorcycle. She glanced up. Another warehouse. All the windows on the lower floor had been boarded up, but the windows on the second floor shone in the sunlight.

Not exactly where she’d expected to find a witch, but nothing was really what she expected these days.

When she climbed off the bike, Az took her hand. “Remember what I said,” he told her, voice soft. “Stay close. Mateo is very dangerous, very strong, and he doesn’t exactly play by the rules.”

There were rules? Why hadn’t anyone told her about them?

Stopping in front of the double doors, Az raised his fist and pounded. The fierce knock seemed to echo inside. Jade glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to see Bastion lurking behind her. But she didn’t see anyone.

She looked back at Az. His body was tense, on alert, and she wondered just what—

The door opened with a groan. A tall, muscled guy in a black T-shirt and faded jeans cocked a brow at them. Tribal tattoos circled his shaved head. “I was wondering when you’d be on my doorstep, Fallen,” he said, with just the faintest hint of a Spanish accent. “You and your . . . querida.” His dark stare locked on her.

Az’s fingers tightened on her arm. Mateo’s gaze dropped, noting the movement. A faint smile curved his lips. “It’s like a sickness, isn’t it?”

“What?” Az frowned at him.

“Emotions. Once you start to feel them, they get inside and tear you apart.” The guy smiled. “They can slice deeper than anything, even a panther shifter’s claws.”

Chill bumps rose on Jade’s arms. “You know about Brandt.”

“There’s very little in this world I don’t know about.” He stepped back and motioned them inside. Once they entered, she expected him to immediately close the doors behind them. Instead, he stepped to the threshold and gazed out with that faint smile still on his lips. After a few moments, he looked back at her. “You’re a wanted woman.”