Page 177 of Fallen Omega

I cut a long look at her. “Stop, Liz. It’s not you.” Then I look at them. “He lashed out. He didn’t mean it.”

Liz makes a small sound. “But…”

She shifts a little closer to me. Maybe she likes warming herself in the heat from Hell that rolls off me. Maybe I need a drink.

“You’re fine, Liz.” There’s one thing she does that I pick up on, and I don’t even think she notices. She does it when needing comfort. “Hum or sing.”

“Reaper?”

“It makes you feel better. Calms you.” More than I do, and I don’t have to talk. Though I don’t mind talking with her.

She does, it’s a soft sound, no words, haunting in a way, like it’s barely formed, like it came before speech, and I understand it.

Liz starts to settle a little more as she hums her feelings and it’s good against my psyche. I let it flow undisturbed for a few beats.

Then I take another drag on my cigarette. Their bards are getting boring. Besides, time to end their bullshit. “I have information.”

They don’t listen.

I wait again.

The raid happened five days ago, and I’ve only been back briefly. The tensions when I did return were thick.

Thick and all about Liz. Dante’s ice and anger, Knight’s protective and growling over her. And Liz?

The hum twists into something else, like when I saw her last. The vibrations I picked up. Pent up energy, nerves.

Because after the fucking raid Dante made her get up on stage. And I was there. Every fucking time. In the dark at the back and under the potent spell her singing creates.

Fuck, she was a vision.

One night blonde bombshell, other nights with long, curling red hair. And the slink of her outfits were alluring on their own. Men sat forward for the girl who came on that stage, a little lost, pure innocence, the sex its own hum of sound around her. And Liz?

She would dance a little, and all the fucking punters thought they were in for hot nakedness, a sex show, something new.

They got something new.

Liz stripped off gloves, a top. A skirt, what the fuck ever, down to rivers of soft satin and silk lingerie that showed nothing and lit imaginations on fire.

Little girl lost in too much make up, the wig that changed her.

And then she started to sing.

Her voice is worthy of the name Dante has for her; Angel.

But there are so many angels.

The soft fluffy ones so fucking pure they hurt somewhere in the back of the throat. The ones who cut down the disbelievers and unworthy with a bloody and just sword.

And the ones who fell, and have seen the wrongness of the world, tasted it. Those who’ve looked the devil in the face and walked to tell the tale.

They all have voices.

They all cast spells.

They all come from her.

And when she sings, each and every time I came in over the last five days, including when the club was shut down and Knight got her to work out the moves, helped pick some songs, she controlled every single man.

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