Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

I resisted the impulse, though, and sheathed Amaya as I walked over to Jak. His nostrils flared; then a slight smile touched his lips—indications that he knew I was close even if he didn’t open his eyes.

I knelt wearily beside him. “I thought I told you to stay outside and wait for us.”

“Yeah, I’m going to do that when someone is being murdered.” He finally opened his eyes and gave me a somewhat annoyed look. “I’m not that much of a bastard, Risa.”

“I didn’t say you were. I just didn’t want you hurt.”

I gently pulled away the remnants of his shirt and inspected the wounds underneath. The knife wounds were long and deep, and while some of the bleeding had been slowed by his shift back into human form, the deeper ones were still weeping.

“You didn’t?” he said in a surprised voice. “I would have thought the opposite.”

I gave him a lopsided smile. “If I’d wanted you hurt, I would have done it myself. Which doesn’t mean,” I added hastily, as his gaze warmed, “that I am, in any way, ever going to forgive you for what you wrote.”

He grimaced. “I sometimes regret what I wrote, but I’m afraid it never lasts long. It was a good story, Risa, and it was the truth.”

“As you saw it.”

“Which is the only way I can ever report things.” His gaze sharpened. “And now, you’d better tell me about that sword-wielding man who suddenly popped into existence and saved my ass.”

I sat back on my heels and wondered why he’d seen Azriel’s real form.

In this case, simply because I allowed it. Generally, it is only powerful clairvoyants who see us as we are.

Which Jak isn’t, so why reveal your true self?

You trust him.

Yeah, but I trust Lucian, too.

That is totally different.

I wasn’t so sure it was, but I glanced back at Jak. “You don’t want to shift shape and heal your wounds first?”

“Just answer the damn question, Risa,” he snapped. “I’m really not in the mood for games.”

I grimaced. “Remember I mentioned that I could see the reapers?”

He stared at me for a moment, then said incredulously, “You’re telling me he’s one of them?”

I nodded. “Although technically, he’s not just a reaper, but a Mijai—he guards the gates to heaven and hell, and hunts down the bad things that come through them.”

He studied me for a moment, clearly trying to decide if I was pulling his leg or not. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

I tore off my shirtsleeve and used it to bandage the worst of his wounds. “Does that mean you didn’t believe me when I mentioned them before?”

“To be honest, I had no idea what to think. I mean, ghosts and demons I can accept, because there’s been enough evidence of both over the years. But reapers? And winged beings that no one has ever seen except in the pages of religious books?” He shook his head. “I’m an investigative reporter. We tend not to believe anything unless there’s some form of proof.”

I snorted softly. “And when there’s no proof, you make it up from half-truths or outright lies.”

His black eyes glimmered with sudden anger. “I have never concocted a story. You of all people should know that.”

I did. I was just being petty and baiting him—not that I was about to admit it. “The secretary obviously knew enough to identify our face-shifter. It’s bloody frustrating that his people got here before us.”

“Yeah. He seems to know exactly what we’re up to. I mean, first Logan, then the photographer, now the secretary—surely it can’t be a coincidence that he’s killing them in the same damn sequence that we’re seeing them.”

“We’re talking about someone who has shown no hesitation about sending a soul stealer against anyone who opposes his plans to buy up the area around the ley-line intersection. Who knows what other type of dark magic he has at his beck and call?”

“Magic wouldn’t reveal our intentions. Not from what I know of it, anyway,” Jak said.