Page 93 of Angel Betrayed

Sam hadn’t been lying to her. Seline stared at her hands and realized her fingers were stained with ash.

She’d just sent a hellhound back to hell. She controlled a hellhound.

Oh, damn.

“Baby, are you okay?”

She glanced up at the voice, so deep with concern. Keenan had his vampire in his arms. Seline could see the blood pouring from the woman’s throat. Okay sure didn’t seem like the right word. More like get-me-to-a-hospital-stat.

“Drink from me,” Keenan said, his hands so gentle on the woman.

Nicole’s head sagged back weakly, and Seline glimpsed her fangs. Then those fangs sank into Keenan. He shuddered. Not with revulsion, but with what she was pretty sure had to be pleasure.

“She’ll be all right.” Sam’s voice didn’t carry any concern. “An angel’s blood—even if the angel has fallen—is incredibly strong.”

Something to remember.

“How did I send him back?” Her gaze darted to the floor. To the scorch marks and the deep grooves that the hound’s claws had left.

“Guess you just had to get mad enough,” he mused. “Mad enough to let that control of yours crack.”

Crack? It had fragmented in that last terrifying moment. If she hadn’t been able to pull the hound back, Nicole would have died in front of her. “I didn’t want more blood on my hands.” She didn’t know Nicole. Just because the woman was a vamp, it didn’t mean she deserved hell.

Who did these days?

Sirens screamed in the distance.

“Humans on the way to the rescue,” Keenan muttered this even as Nicole continued to drink from him.

“You’ve got her?” Sam asked with a nod at Nicole.

“Always.” Keenan’s answer was immediate.

Sam’s lips twisted. “Then get her out of here. Meet up with me at dawn, at Pedro’s place.”

Keenan’s brows rose. “You trust that shifter?”

“More than most.”

Keenan nodded and carried his feeding vampire toward the back door.

Seline didn’t move. She wasn’t sure where to go or what to do. Energy still pumped through her blood. She’d taken too much when she kissed Sam, she knew she had, but he didn’t look weak.

If the hound had killed him, Sam’s death would have been on her. She straightened her shoulders. “You need to go. Get away from me. What if I accidentally bring the hound back? You just—go.”

One dark brow climbed. “And what are you going to do? Stand here and wait for the cops?”

Maybe. Perhaps she deserved to be locked up. “You said the coyote shifter was dead?”

“Not by your hand. The hound killed him.”

The sirens were louder. “I meant to kill him. I took as much power from him as I could.” It was time for Sam to realize just how dark she was on the inside.

“If he’d still been breathing when I found him,” Sam seemed utterly unconcerned, “I would have killed him.”

His admission had her eyes widening.

Sam’s stare had dropped to the front of her shirt. “I can see the marks he put on you.”

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