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Angel’s Blood
Copyright © 2008 Stephani Hecht
ISBN: 978-1-55487-184-1
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Smashwords Edition
Angel’s Blood
Archangels Five
By
Stephani Hecht
Dedication
Michelle and Tammi, you helped me get here. To Crofty and Chysmom for helping me name Jordy and Odan.
Chapter One
Incognito and Cam were usually two words you didn’t hear in the same sentence.
That hadn’t stopped Michael, Chief of Archangels, from doing it though. Earlier that day he found his nephew and issued an order. “One of our spies has been compromised and needs to be smuggled to safety. I need you to go to a neutral bar tonight, Cam, and you need to go incognito.”
Cam had flashed his fangs and asked, “Just how am I supposed to do that, Chief? As far as I can tell I’m the only angel sporting a pair of these.”
Michael had given him a not-my-damn-problem-figure-it-out-yourself shrug and said, “Keep your head down and mouth shut. I know both of those activities go against your nature, but I have confidence in you. Make sure you don’t make eye contact with anybody either. Your unique eyes are a dead giveaway.”
“Fuck you, Michael.”
“Thanks, but you’re not my type. That does remind me of one last thing though. Leave the succubi alone.”
Now as Cam sat in the dark dingy bar, he knew that last order was going to be a toughie. Since he was part incubus himself, his body craved sex like a heroin junkie craved their next fix. Being around all these succubi and the free sex they were offering was torture. The females were slinking around the bar looking for a male to scratch their itch and dear God he wanted to be that male.
Succubi didn’t lose their beauty when they turned away from the angel life like other demons. Sure, there were some changes, they had a set of black wings, fangs and cat eyes now, but otherwise they were unblemished and pretty. Actually, they were more than pretty, each one could put a supermodel to shame. Their bodies seemed built for sex and nothing else. They always made sure to wear as little clothing as possible, too, showing off their best assets.
He pulled down the brim of his baseball hat even more and eyed one particular female demon. He’d been with the dark-haired succubus a couple of times before and she’d always been a feisty one. Damn, what he wouldn’t give just to be able to take her to the back room for five minutes…wait, make that ten minutes. The fun he could have with her, a little suck followed by a lot of fuck. Unable to hold himself back anymore, he let out a sharp whistle to get her attention. When she looked at him, he crooked his finger and smiled at her. She immediately started to walk over to him, her hips swaying sensually under the tiny scrap of fabric she called a skirt. See that was the nice things about succubi, you didn’t have to waste times with fancy words, you could get right down to business. The average conversation went like this…
“You wanna?”
“Mmm…okay.”
He couldn’t count the times those words had led to him taking care of business in one of the bar’s back rooms. It always ended the same way, him on the filthy ground with one or two female demons, just enough clothes removed to get things done. But then, sex was sex so he really couldn’t complain. Much.
He was so lost in his lustful thoughts that he didn’t realize he wasn’t alone anymore until the seat opposite of him slid out and someone sat in it. When he got a gander at who it was, he almost fell out of his chair.
It was Amadeaha. The one angel he wanted. The one angel he knew he could never have.
At first Cam gapped at her because he was for sure he must be dreaming about her again. Then, once he realized he was friggin wide-awake, he gapped at her because he couldn’t believe that she was really there. Without meaning to, he inhaled deeply. Even with the rank demon stench that always hung in the bar, he could still detect lilacs. Amadeaha always smelled like that and how he loved it.
Her long, dark, wine red hair was back in a practical ponytail. The look made her intense, dark, green eyes appear even larger than usual. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a tight pink sweater that hugged her just-the-right-size breasts.
She seemed so out of place. The neutral bar was a hangout for rouges, demons and lowlife angels, not beautiful females like her. Her pure features stood out in strong contrast to the dirty floors, rough wooden tables and dingy walls. He might belong in a hellhole like this, but not her. Never her.
A thousand thoughts and questions snapped through his mind as he stared at her. First and foremost was, how in the hell did she get involved in the spy business? She was the niece of the justice angel’s leader, Jehel. Since the angel warriors were at war with the justice angels, she should be the last one that Michael trusted.
She was also the only female angel that had been able to turn Cam’s head since the demons had converted him. Cam inwardly groaned when he remembered the last time he had seen Amadeaha. It’d been the day of the rebellion uprising and he’d been sick and out of his mind. He’d babbled some pretty damn embarrassing things to her that day. All of them true confessions of how he really felt about her, too. To top it all off, that had been in between fainting spells. He’d collapsed at her feet three or four times, depending on who was retelling the story in order to get a rise out of Cam.
She was looking at him expectantly so he knew that he should say something. His mind scrambled as he tried to think of something charming. Conversations with females had never been his forte even before he had become all big and scary. He knew he had to say something though, they just couldn’t sit around the dirty table and stare at each other all day.
Finally he blurted, “I thought redheads weren’t supposed to wear pink?” He inwardly cringed at his words. Yeah, that was just going to charm the boots right off her. She looked down at her sweater and brushed at it with her small hands before returning her gaze to him. He noticed she was trembling a bit and he had to resist the ridiculous urge to reach out and comfort her.
“I’m sorry,” her voice was as soft and gentle as he remembered. “I’m not used to dressing in the way of humans.”
“Really? How are you liking it?”
She gave a delicate shrug as her pink lips pursed into a small frown. “I find their clothes to be rather confining.”
“Yeah, I hear bras can be a bitch.” Ouch, that last comment was totally uncalled for, but oh well. He had a reputation for speaking first and thinking later so he might as well meet expectations.
She tilted her head to the side with a confused expression. “What’s a bra?”
He nearly fell out of his chair for the second time that night. It wasn’t the most sexy thing he’d ever heard a female say, it was just the pure innocence behind it. She wasn’t trying to turn him on either, she was just being her natural self.
His gaze drifted, on its own accord, down to her breasts. The thought of those perfect things being bare under that tight fuzzy sweater made the grungy jeans he was wearing feel too tight. He shifted in his seat and tried his best to look bored and unaffected by her presence.
What he needed to do was get Amadeaha out of here and off his hands as soon as possible before he did or said something that they both would regret. What the hell was Michael thinking of in the first place, even putting him in the same room as a female angel, let alone this one? It was no big secret in their family that Cam had always had a weak spot for Amadeaha.
He could feel her still staring at him so he reluctantly raised his eyes to meet hers. As soon as their gazes locked, he knew he was in big trouble. His feelings for her hadn’t dimmed over time, if anything, they had grown stronger. Shit, fuck, damn, he needed to put as much distance between him and her as possible.
* * * *
Dear Lord, how she loved his eyes. She always had even though she’d rarely seen them. He was ashamed of them so he always wore dark glasses or kept them focused on his feet, hiding them from view. But to her they were beautiful.
They were a deep, dark blue, with irises so large there was almost no white visible at all. The pupils were elongated and shaped like a felines. They were the eyes of a demon and she had no doubt that’s why he hated them so much. She briefly wondered what he would think if he knew she saw them every night in her dreams.
What wonderfully wicked dreams they had been, too. She’d never been with a male, but that didn’t mean she was completely naïve. She’d heard the other female justice angels when they whispered about their various exploits. So she had plenty of naughty fantasies and they had all been vivid and always about him. It occurred to her she was gawking at him like some lovesick teenager so she decided to get down to business. She nervously licked her lips and said, “I need to speak to Michael as soon as possible.”
He pulled his hat down over his eyes and looked around the room.
Even though it was covered, she knew exactly the way his hair looked. It was blond and he always wore it so it looked like someone had just run their fingers through it. Serel, one of her few justice angel friends, always called it the-just-had-sex style.
She realized he was trying to disguise who he was and she clasped her hands together nervously. He was Camael, leader of the empaths, a member of the Order and one of the most wanted angels in Heaven. How in the hell did he think he could hide who he was just by putting on some dirty clothes and a dumb hat? She’d picked him out of the crowd in just a matter of seconds. How long did he think it would take the justice angels or the demons? To make matters even worse, he was acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. How dare he be so unaffected by her presence when she was ready to fall apart at the mere sight of him?
The only reason why she had volunteered to become a spy in the first place was because of him. The one thing that had kept her going in the past few weeks after she’d been discovered, imprisoned and whipped had been thinking about Cam. To think that he could care so little about her stung. “Someone is bound to figure out who you are,” she spat under her breath as anger replaced hurt.
He gave her a cocky grin. “The demons here know better than to mess with me. As for the justice angels, they don’t scare me.”
“I still don’t understand why Michael didn’t just have us meet at a safe house. It would have been more convenient.”
“Because you refused to come alone. You insisted on having someone escort you. For all we know, you could have been leading Jehel himself right to our door.”
“I brought Serel, she’s my friend and she’d never betray me. In fact, she’s the one who helped me escape.” Amadeaha had never been one for violence, but she was about ready to snack him. Maybe that would knock his arrogant ass down a peg or two.
“I don’t know Serel, therefore I don’t trust her. Where is she now, by the way?”
“Once she got a look at you, she went back to Heaven.”
“Which is precisely why we can’t trust her. She’s one of them.”
“What about me? Do you trust me?” she asked breathlessly. She hated that his opinion meant so much to her.
“Michael trusts you,” he replied blandly.
Fine, if he wanted to cold and impersonal, than so could she. “I have some information and it is imperative that I get it him.”
“That is why he sent me to fetch you. Although, it would have been a lot easier if you had just put a message in a droid.”
She felt a fresh surge of anger at his blasé attitude. She’d lost everything to bring out this message and he was slumped in a chair acting like her mission was no big deal. Here she was with no home, no family and in extreme pain and he could care less, and what the hell did he mean by putting a message in a droid? “Just take me to your Chief. He should have been the one to come for me in the first place.” She wanted to take those words back as soon as she said them. When was she going to stop letting her temper make her say stupid things?
Cam lifted his hat and fixed her with a pissed-off glare. “Surprise, cookie, Michael is a very busy boy. He just doesn’t jump because you snap your little fingers. Your Uncle Jehel should have told you that.”
“My uncle never made it a habit to talk with me a great deal. He doesn’t have what you would call tender feelings toward me.” She studied her fingernails casually, trying to ignore how hard it was for her to admit that out loud. She blinked because something was in her eyes. It wasn’t tears damn it, because she didn’t cry over her family anymore. She decided to get the subject off her and onto someone else she was desperate for news about. “Although, he does talk of his missing son a great deal.”
“Jehel doesn’t have tender feelings for him either. Besides, he knows where Dina’s at.” Cam smiled, giving her a brief glimpse of his fangs. “If you want to know about your cousin, why don’t you just come right out and ask me instead of beating around the bush?”
She didn’t answer right away because she was staring at his mouth, mesmerized. The one time she had been blessed enough to be bitten by him had been a turning point in her life. He’d been sick and not really with it at the time and probably didn’t remember one moment of it, but she sure did. Even though it had hurt some, all she recalled was the feeling of his arms around her, his soft lips touching her neck, the way his tongue caressed her flesh before he sunk his teeth in. She realized she was touching the area on her neck where he had bitten her and jerked her hand down. “Fine, I’ll ask,” she said briskly, ashamed and embarrassed that she’d allowed herself to get distracted by a hot set of fangs. “How’s my cousin?”
“Dina is doing real good. He has some anger issues, but after the way his father treated him, who wouldn’t? He’s real tight with my little brother Bear.”
“How do your other brothers treat him? Dina is so small and meek, I worry about how he is around so many archangels.”
For some reason that comment amused him. “All eight of us Lehor brothers like Dina just fine. You need to remember, you haven’t seen your cousin in a couple years. He’s changed, a lot.”
“Can I… What I mean is, would you…” she stopped, unable to continue. Amadeaha hated asking anyone for favors because she had always been taught to do so showed weakness.
He avoided her eyes and instead, scanned the bar, on alert for danger. “Dina will want to see you. As soon as we figure out what we’re going to do with you, I’ll take you to him.”
“Thank you.” She took several deep breaths to calm her stomach because it felt like it had been dancing ever since she had entered the bar and it all wasn’t because of Cam. She couldn’t help but feel all the emotions swirling around her. It wasn’t the demons or angels that were overloading her either. It was the humans.
Before tonight, she had only been to Earth on a couple of occasions. She’d heard humans were the hardest emotions to tamper down and now she was experiencing it firsthand. She swallowed down several mouthfuls of bitter saliva and ground her teeth together. The last thing she wanted to do was vomit all over Cam’s lap. Somehow she didn’t think that would impress him much. He reached over the table and grabbed her hand. As soon as he touched her, the anxiety disappeared. He lightly feathered the pad of his thumb several times over the inside of her wrist. Each stroke made her heart thump a little harder in her chest.
“I should have realized sooner the vibes would be getting to you,” his soft caring voice was completely at odds with his earlier sarcastic one. “I can absorb some of it to help you. Is this better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He gave a small smile. “What’s the use of being the leader of the empaths if I can’t help one of them out now and again?”
He still rubbed her wrist and it made her entire body tingle. She wondered what it would feel like to have him stroke other parts of her body. She quickly looked down when she felt her cheeks getting hot, afraid if he saw her blushing he would know what she was thinking.
“I’m a justice angel, not an empath.”
“If you say so,” he said in an unconvinced tone. “The feelings of nausea and anxiety will eventually go away. It’s always hard for empaths when they first come to Earth. That’s why we usually gradually introduce them to it.”