Page 27 of Angel's Vengeance

An odd figure draped in suited finery stood at the edge of the tree line.The cut of the individual’s sharp jacket mimicked the crease in the front of its slacks, which was visible even at that distance.The being wore no overcoat, nor were there any footprints marking its trail through the snow.

No, it only wore a single smile that flashed colder than any New England winter.Sharp teeth a hair shy of animalistic broadcasted the warning message, but Rhode didn’t need to examine it.Oh, he knew exactly what had been watching him.

Whohad been watching him.

And it should have been fucking impossible in broad daylight.

Rhode’s celestial senses sharpened, twisting the knife in his gut further as the picture before him came into focus.A male who was a good head and shoulders taller than the rest of the charmers leered back at him, his flattened nose and eyes upturned at the corners marking exactly who had witnessed Rhode’s little fire show.

Cyro.The demon ruler.

Rhode leaped to his feet and let his rhodium skin ripple over every inch of him.Before the last of the armor could snap into place, however, Cyro offered up a smug little wave from across the way and vanished into the wind.

“Rhode?What’s happening?”Neela lifted herself up on her elbows.Her voice brought him back to the present, to what they had just done.To who he had just done it with, and who had seen it all.

“Did you call him here?”he snarled, his hand itching for the weapons at his back.

“What?Call who?There’s no one here.”

“Don’t ask me who.You fucking know who.”

“Rhode, there’s no one here.No one.”

He blinked again, then cast his senses far and wide throughout the arboretum.At the gate, two sets of people had just entered.Mortals.One couple were retirees, the other two arboretum workers returning from lunch.In front of him, he frantically pushed his powers out, scanning the grounds.

No hint of charmers.Aside from Neela, there was not a single marker of the shadow realm anywhere for miles.Had he really imagined it?

Rhode gripped his head.“Fuck!”

“Rhode?Talk to me.What’s going on?”Neela offered her hand, but he refused to look at her, refused to examine too closely how his first taste of intimacy since his capture had somehow been caressed by the demon ruler’s talons.

Mages, he was going to be sick.Or savage.

His head spun violently until he could no longer delineate his metal from Neela’s white coat or the snow around him.It was all, and always had been, one giant cage.So he did the only thing his panicked mind could do to escape.

He left her there.

With wings spread wide, he leaped into the air and took to the skies.

Chapter13

The sun had just begun to sink below the horizon when Neela finally dusted off the burner phone Brass had given her, pried her nearly frozen ass off the bench outside the arboretum, and made the call.

It had only taken the better part of several hours to realize with an alarming amount of certainty that Rhode wasn’t coming back for her.Honestly, did she expect him to, though?

Did I know what to expect at all?

There was out-of-her-depth and then there was whatever the hell had happened earlier.He had asked her to kiss him, hadn’t he?

Of course he had, because in what world would she voluntarily lock lips with a man who shirked away from her touch as though she had ten kinds of plague crawling all over her?

She’d done what he asked of her.There wasn’t one second of that encounter that hadn’t involved some kind of fight-or-flight thinking on both sides, she was sure of it.It was a literal game of survival, with no power-ups left and no health bar to regenerate.

So she’d kissed him.And he’d promptly left her ass in the snow like a forgotten bag of vegetative waste that would have to endure another freezing winter before the town came and picked her up, moldy and sodden.

Neela’s knee bobbed out an anxious rhythm.Sheshouldbe furious.Should be gleefully counting off the ticking minutes that took him farther away from her.Or at the very least, basking in the amazing experience of not only having a hand in their rescue operation but calling forth a crucial power that onlyshecould pull off.Her, of all beings!

But instead, all she could think about was the kiss.

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