Page 50 of Under a Wicked Moon
“What is a heart killer?”
“You lose your heart, and then she goes crazy assassin and kills you.” He leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Came up with that all by myself. Good one, huh?”
“It’s not a complication you have to stress about.”
Flynn’s head tilted and his eyebrows rose. “The last time you were like this and told me not to worry, we almost died resisting an order to kill your girlfriend who ended up dead anyway. Then you lost your bloody mind for…” A deep sigh escaped him. “A long time. You love too fast and too hard.” He shrugged. “It’s the way you are.”
“Not true. Love has nothing to do with Vivi and me.”A tangle of emotion clogged his brain and sat heavy in his chest, feelings he couldn’t sort.He was in trouble.
“Maybe it’s not love as in gooey lovey-dovey shit, but you’ve got strong feelings.”
“Shared torture does something to mess up your mind.”
Flynn slowly blinked and stared at him. “I’m all about you getting laid. God knows it’d mellow you for a while, but she’s about way more than straight-up sex. I’ll follow you to the end of the earth, Ky, but if you get killed when she goes Winter Soldier on you in the bedroom, I’ll be the first to say, ‘Told you so.’ I won’t be following you to hell to try to free your soul from the devil, though.”
“You’d follow me to hell to get your ‘told you so’ moment and bring the devil pizza. You two would probably get along.”
“Yeah, I probably would. The difference is I could kill her if I had to. To protect myself and you. I don’t think you could.”
Roman stalked in before he was forced to answer. “She’s in her room. I followed her to be sure.”
“You’re talking about Vivi?” Ky asked.
Roman nodded.
“To be sure she’s in her room because…?” Ky scowled.
“We need to talk about the game plan.”
“What’s this warrior-for-God business that Mom mentioned?” Ky asked Roman.
“It turns out God likes what we do and wants me—us—tocontinue to fight paranormal threats even after we get free of the curse.”
“The angel told you this? Zadkiel? If God wants you, maybe us, to fight for him, why doesn’t he nix his curse on all of us?” Ky rubbed his wrist.
“I’m not sure he controls magic, which is a different religion with different gods. Or, maybe things have to play out a certain way for some future bullshit to happen that’ll change our lives.” Roman rolled his eyes. “I hate gods and fates and their games. We have to figure out the curse for ourselves. The angel hinted there’s a way out.”
“It’d be super helpful if they simply told us the answer,” Flynn muttered.
Ky cleared his throat and touched over his left shoulder. “Do you have a weird tattoo of an angel? One that moves on its own?” He lifted his sleeve to expose his left shoulder. The intricate ink angel rendering no longer knelt but stood, still brandishing a broadsword. “I thought they’d done something to me in that prison, but it’s too magical for them. The thing has its own energy. It changes position all the time.”
Roman nodded. “I have one on my back. It’s Zadkiel.”
“Yeah, I got one too a few months ago,” Flynn said. “Freaky. It’s like it looks at me when I try to see it in the mirror.”
Roman said. “I think they’re our guardian angels.”
“As in it’s actually on us and watching?” Ky asked.
Roman shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Are we all fated to serve God in protecting his chosen species against paranormals?” After Roman’s stiff nod, Ky said, “From one master to another. How’s God any better than the monarch? Another magical mark.” He held up his wrist with the curse band and rubbed it. “Another person telling us what to do and how to live our lives.”
“It’s not our reality to have a deity as the person we report toright now. When it is, I’ll tell you how I feel about it. He did arrange for me to have Nova. He brought her back from death to be in my life to keep me from losing my mind. That’s a boss who comes off a bit more benevolent in my book.”
“Sure he does if he’s your ticket to getting laid,” Flynn said.
“If he gives even a small shit about what we need and lets us have some normalcy where we can value family, even have one, then I’ll be his warrior.” Roman scrolled through his burner cell phone. “We have two priorities. One, narrow down who sent you in, Ky, which will be the person involved with these facilities, and then we can research that person. Two, we have to relocate all the relics stored in England immediately. As in, we need to move them from London to somewhere else.”
