Darkness Rising (Dark Angels 2)

“You will find those keys for me,” he added.

“Go fuck—”

But I didn’t get the rest of the sentence out, because he flung me violently across the room. I hit the shower doors sideways, tearing them off their hinges, and we fell in a tangled heap of shattered glass, twisted metal, and bruised limbs.

“You will get those keys for me,” he said, “or what I do to you today I will have done to your friends tomorrow. Only my Razan will ensure they do not survive the experience.”

Bastard, I wanted to say, but the words stuck somewhere in my throat, caught up in the desperate struggle to breathe.

“The information you need to find the first key is in the Dušan’s book,” he continued as his essence continued to bear down on me. My lungs were beginning to burn and panic surged, making it even harder to breathe. “Only one of my blood can read it, and only from the gray fields while the book lies here. But it must be retrieved from the Raziq first. They have it concealed. And again, only one of my blood will be able to find or see it.”

“Why—” the words came out croaky, barely audible thanks to my lack of air. I licked my lips and tried again. “Why not simply tell me everything you know?”

“Because if I only feed you small pieces of the puzzle, you are still almost useless to the Raziq if they capture you.”

I guess that made sense, even if the rest of it didn’t.

“You still have the locker key,” he continued. “Go there today at one PM, and you will find further instructions.”

“Why not just give them to me now?”

“Because my Razan foolishly set the wards for a brief window, and I am out of time.” The smothering energy evaporated, and suddenly I could breathe again. “And the less I am close to you, the less likely the Raziq are to use you to come after me.”

Yeah, right. There was more to these fucking games of his than just a need to keep his distance.

“And what happens once I get the book?” I asked instead.

He didn’t answer immediately, and his retreating energy became more distant.

“I must go.”

“Wait!”

But he didn’t. I drew a shaky breath and slowly picked myself up from the shattered remains of the shower doors.

“Are you all right?”

The words emerged from the silence even as the heat of Azriel’s presence washed over me. Reapers, like the Aedh, were creatures of light and shadows, with an energy so fierce their mere presence burned the very air around them. And while they weren’t true flesh-and-blood beings, they could attain that form if they wished.

Which is how I’d come about. My father had spent one night in flesh form with my mother and, in the process, created me—a half-breed mix of werewolf and Aedh who was lucky enough to mostly get the best bits of both and few of the downsides.

“Do I look all right?” I said, trying to extract myself from the remains of the shower door.

Azriel appeared in front of me, taking my arm and holding me steady as my foot caught on an edge and I stumbled. His fingers were warm against my skin—warm and disturbing.

While reapers were basically shapeshifters, able to take on any form that would comfort the dying on their final journey, they did possess one “true” shape. And while the combination of my Aedh blood and my psychic skills usually allowed me to see whatever form they used to claim their soul, for some weird reason I saw Azriel’s real form rather than whatever shape he decided to take on. And that shape was compellingly attractive.

His face was chiseled, almost classical in its beauty, and yet possessing a hard edge that spoke of a man who’d won more than his fair share of battles. He was shirtless, his skin a warm, suntanned brown, and his abs well defined. The leather strap that held his sword in place seemed to emphasize the width of his shoulders, and faded jeans clung to his legs, accentuating their lean strength. A stylized black tatt that resembled the left half of a wing swept around his ribs from underneath his arm, the tips brushing across the left side of his neck.

Only it wasn’t a tatt. It was a Dušan—a darker, more stylized brother to the one that had crawled onto my left arm and now resided within my flesh. They were designed to protect us when we walked the gray fields. We’d been sent them by person or persons unknown, although Azriel suspected it was probably my father’s do

ing. He was one of the few left in this world—or the next—who had the power to make them.

Azriel’s gaze met mine, his blue eyes—one as vivid and bright as a sapphire, the other almost navy, and as dark as a storm-driven sea—giving little away.

“I have seen you in worse condition,” he commented. His voice was mellow and rich, and on any other man it would have been sexy. But this wasn’t a man. He merely held that form. And if I reminded myself of that enough, then maybe that tiny, insane part of me that was attracted to this reaper would move on. “What happened?”

“My fucking father.” I pulled my arm from his grip and tried to ignore the warmth lingering on my skin as I thrust a hand through my sweaty hair. “And his spell prevented you from answering my call, didn’t it?”