A knock at the door announced Tayla and Kynan’s arrival. They entered, and for once, Kynan didn’t look as if he wanted to kill Lore. Tayla carried a crossbow, and Kynan had a broadsword. He handed it to Lore hilt-first.

“The sword and two crossbow bolts have been coated with qeres,” Kynan said. “I wish we had more, but The Aegis has a very limited supply.”

“Why is that?” Lore asked.

“The recipe has been lost. What little we have is all we have.”

“So use it wisely.” Tayla handed the crossbow to Idess. “You sure we can’t go?”

“Positive.” In a lot of ways, Idess was glad for that. Fewer people for her brother to hurt. Fewer witnesses to her shame. “I can only flash with one person.”

“Then take me,” Kynan said. “It’s me he wants. Trade me for Rade. I can handle myself once you get Rade out of there.”

Idess sighed. “I can’t risk you like that. And ultimately, he wants you dead, but not by his hand. His goal is to ruin me, which will only happen if you’re killed by someone other than him.”

“Damn,” he breathed.

She nodded at the appropriateness of the curse. “Does The Aegis know what’s going on?”

“The Sigil knows I’m in danger—” Kynan glowered at Lore “—but we’re considering this a fallen-angel threat. Because if this as**ole is dead, I don’t have to worry about you, right?”

“You should still worry,” Lore muttered, and Idess cleared her throat. He gave her a sheepish look. “Yeah, yeah. Once the contract is void, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Kynan snorted. “I was never afraid.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been on the verge of pissing yourself.”

Idess half-expected their heraldi to start burning, so when Kynan laughed, she thought she was hearing things. “If I didn’t hate you so much, I think I could actually like you.”

“I’d probably like it better if you kept hating me.”

Kynan’s lopsided grin was a traffic-stopper. “You’re just mad because I got the girl.”

“No,” Lore said, shifting his gaze to Idess with such hot possession that her breath clogged in her throat, “I got the one I want.”

Heart pounding and face heating, she cleared her throat. “If you two are finished, we should get ready for what we have to do.” She wasn’t going to say, “Kill Rami,” because she prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe she could bargain with him. Or save him somehow. Because destroying him could very well destroy her. “How is Gem, by the way?”

“Like I always said, she’s got a hard head,” Kynan said, the affection in his gravelly voice unmistakable. “Apparently, when she bent over to pick up something on the floor, the coffee maker fell off the counter and beaned her.”

It hadn’t “fallen,” Idess was sure. One of the ghosts had pushed it, probably at Roag’s direction.

“We’d better go,” Tayla said. “I want to check in with Shade and Runa. Oh, and E said to tell you that Sin is fine. She’s at UG getting checked out.”

“No doubt she’s loving that,” Lore said wryly.

“Well, I heard a lot of cussing in the background…” Tayla shrugged. “You guys be careful. And please, get Rade back.”

“We will,” Lore swore. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will deliver that child to Shade.”

Tayla nodded, and then she and Kynan were out of there.

“This is going to be dangerous,” Idess said. “Even with the qeres weapons, Rami has an advantage, Lore. As a fallen angel, he’s drawing on the power of Sheoul. I’m not a true angel, and I’m much weaker than he is.”

“Is that why you were affected so badly by the cross-bow bolt?”

“Exactly.” She absently rubbed her sternum. “But really, you get a hole the size of a fist blasted through you, and see how you fare.”

“I’ll pass.” He pulled off his gloves and tossed them to the kitchen table. “You poofed right after that. What if he does the same?”

“He won’t. I have a trick up my sleeve.”

His jacket went next, leaving his arms mouth-wateringly bare in his short-sleeved T-shirt. “Which is?”

“Powdered Benedictine monk wine.”

“Monk… wine?” He paused in the middle of unbuckling the leather weapons harness strapped across his chest. “As in, wine made by monks?”

She nodded. “Wine made in a secret chamber at Buck-fast Abbey in England is blessed by monks and dried. Once powdered, it can be used as a temporary antidematerialization weapon against fallen angels.” And angels, which was why it was kept under lock and key. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, it could be used to immobilize God’s army of angels during the Final Battle.

“How temporary?”

“It’ll give us only a few minutes.”

“That sucks, but it’s better than nothing.” Lore laid out his harness and systematically checked each weapon. If they weren’t going after her brother, she’d actually think his efficiency and confidence when handling the weapons was incredibly sexy. “So where do you think he’ll be?”

“Sheoul. The Forbidden Abyssal.” Her voice was stronger than she felt on the inside.

Lore’s foul curse scorched the very air. “That’s the nice name for it. Do you know where it is? What it is?”

“I’ve heard of it.” Who hadn’t heard of it?

“It’s known as the Butchers’ Playground.” His voice was grim. “It’s said that nothing is off-limits there. There are no rules except that nothing can die quickly.”

It was also one of the few places in Sheoul that angels couldn’t enter at all. Some claimed that Satan himself liked to hang out there. No doubt it was a great vacation spot for someone like him.

“That’s why I know he’ll be there. He was never one for half-measures, and if he’s gone evil, he’s gone evil.”

“Dammit,” Lore muttered. “Since it’s in Sheoul, you can’t flash us there, and if the rumors are true, the nearest Harrowgate is days away. This could throw a King Kong– sized wrench into things. Twenty-four hours, and game over for me, angel.”

Idess glanced at the clock on the wall. They had forty-five minutes. And even if Rami wasn’t in the Playground, if they didn’t find him within an hour, they’d be screwed for another twenty-three.

Which put them dangerously close to Lore’s deadline.

She looked at the demon standing in front of her, a demon who had more honor and love in his heart than many of the humans she’d kept safe over the centuries. Fate had dealt him a bad hand, and he’d been paying for it for over a hundred and thirty years.

Fate had also made him Primori, which meant she had to protect him. He couldn’t face Rami in the Playground alone.

And he wouldn’t. If this was a test, she would pass—but she’d have to cheat to do it. She could go with him, but only if she was no longer an angel.

“Lore?”

“Yeah?”

Licking her lips, she placed her palm on his chest, right over his assassin mark, and then dragged her hand down. Slowly. By the time she reached the waistband of his jeans, his nostrils were flaring, as though taking in the scent of the arousal that had sparked in her the moment she touched him.

“Make love to me.”

Twenty-two

“Idess…” Her name came out in a strangled rush of air.

“Please.”

Taking a step back was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “Now isn’t the time.” What was he saying? Any time was the time. Especially since they could both die and this might be the last chance for ha**g s*x with anyone.

“It’s the perfect time.”

“Guess the Butchers’ Playground thing isn’t a big deal if you’re looking death in the face, huh?”

“Guess not.”

“But… your vow. What happens if you break it?”

She stepped into him again. “Some sort of penance. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Common sense told him the penalty for an angel’s breaking a vow of celibacy wasn’t going to be minor, and he couldn’t allow her to suffer no matter how badly he ached for her. But when he tried to back away, she gripped his h*ps and pressed the entire long, sexy length of her body against him. Still, he might have had a chance against her… until she awkwardly palmed his crotch.

Tenderness flooded him. She wanted him but didn’t know how to initiate sex. Not that he was so great at that either. Neither one of them was technically a virgin, but emotionally? He so was.

He’d fucked. He’d been sucked. But he’d never made love to anyone.

He looked down at her, into her guileless eyes that even now gleamed with a sort of hopeless honesty. She’d resigned herself to something—probably their death—and she was prepared to face it.

Her strength humbled him. Devastated him. Made him want to make her his no matter what the cost.

“Mine,” he growled, as he swept her up into his arms and strode to the bedroom. He had no idea what kind of caveman instinct had come over him, but it had hijacked him and was now in control and the only thing he could do was let it fly on autopilot. And it wasn’t as though Idess was fighting him.

Her chest heaved with panting breaths, her skin was flushed with arousal, and the outline of her ni**les against her top left tiny peaks that begged for his touch. His tongue. Right through the fabric.

Mine.

Unable to bear the feel of clothes against his skin for one more second, he laid her on the bed and peeled off his T-shirt, but before he could unbutton his pants, she was on her knees on the mattress, slapping his hands out of the way.

“I get to do this.”

Far be it for him to argue. Plus, it was really hot, the way the pink tip of her tongue slipped between her lips as she worked his zipper. His c**k sprang free, didn’t even have time to enjoy the shock of the cool air before her hot hand closed around it.

He dragged a ragged breath into his laboring lungs. “Idess…”

Her mouth closed over the head of his c**k and he damned near swallowed his tongue. She applied suction that made his eyes roll back in his head, and then she released him with a soft pop.

“I have so been wanting to do that,” she said, in a morning-rough murmur that grabbed him right between the legs more tightly than her hand ever could.

She looked up at him with a sleepy, seductive gaze, and damn, this was something right out of a skin flick. With a slinky smile, she took him into the warm, wet depths of her mouth again. Oh, damn, this was amazing. So amazing that his knees went rubbery as she sucked him. When she paid special attention to swirling her tongue in the slit, catching the crystal beads that formed there, he had to bite his cheek to keep from shouting.

One hand caressed his balls, her thumb stroking the seam between them. She blew a cool draft of air over his damp shaft, and he shivered with pleasure. She was an evil tease, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Slowly, she dragged the flat of her tongue down his length, all the way to his balls. His muscles tensed, his come building like steam in his sac, made hotter when she sucked his testicles into her mouth and bounced them on her tongue.

“Idess,” he groaned.

He felt her lips stretch into a smile, and she began a wicked hum that sent a shock of stimulation from his groin to his skull. His head swam and his skin tightened. His hearing became more acute, his sense of smell sharper. Colors were brighter, his emotions more intense.

Her mouth slid back up his cock, her teeth scraping gently and nibbling as she went. How had she learned this magic?

She took him deep, so deep he felt the back of her throat… and then she swallowed. Jesus, she swallowed him, creating a maelstrom of sensation at the tip of his c**k as her finger and thumb ringed the base and pumped up and down, and the other hand squeezed his balls.

“Stop, oh, shit… stop…” He couldn’t hold on, couldn’t resist the sensations turning him inside out. He drove his hands into her hair, but as the cl**ax edged closer, riding on a razor edge, he jerked his right hand away. He knew it wouldn’t affect her, but a hundred years of paranoia wasn’t going to be extinguished overnight.

Without breaking her rhythm, she took his hand and returned it to her scalp. For the first time, he truly realized how special she was. He could let go… she wanted him to let go. To be free. To be with her.

She sucked upward as her hand rolled his sac. His dermoire writhed, the power burning from his shoulder to his hand, but Idess was safe. Unaffected. The knowledge and freedom condensed all his emotions, all sensations, concentrating them so fully he couldn’t believe his feet were still on the ground. His come boiled up his shaft, shot in a fiery stream. Surging, losing control, he pumped into her mouth. She took everything and kept licking and sucking until he was so sensitive he had to push her away.

Her smile as she looked up at him was one of satisfaction and affection. Desire burned there, too, and a heartbeat later she was shedding her pants.

“It’s true,” she said huskily.

“What is?”

She shot him a sultry grin as she lay back on the mattress and drove her hand inside her panties. He nearly came again. “The stories about your breed’s semen. It’s an aphrodisiac. Milder than I’d have guessed, but… mmm… this is amazing…”

“My human half probably affects the potency—” He broke off as she kicked her head back and began to pleasure herself. “Then again, maybe not.”