Hearts of Fire
Page 7

“Okay,” she said softly. “Hope you guys are listening. Pretty, feathery, sword-swinging Goody Two-shoes…”
Her slurred words echoed in the hushed confines of the church as she weaved in the direction of the altar. This was her life now, she thought. Angels, angels, everywhere. Good ones, bad ones, ones that hit on everything that moved, ones that lit fires, ones that got angry at the ones who hit on women and lit fires. She spared an annoyed glance at the marble angel with the flowers—so unrealistic—before making her clumsy way to the one with the sword. Temples and churches were supposed to be like direct dialing the other side, right? It was worth a shot. And she had plenty to say.
“Uriel?” she said when she reached the statue. It was up on a pedestal, naturally. Undeterred, Dru poked the marble folds of its flowing garment.
“Uriel—damn it, I chipped a nail… I gotta bone to pick with you. Are you listening? I need to tell you something. It’s not fair. You know it’s not fair to send him off on his own. Aren’t you guys supposed to be about justice or something? Redemption?” Her voice broke on the last word, and she realized she was perilously close to crying. God, she was going to hate herself tomorrow evening. “I know that not everything can be fixed. I know that better than anyone. But you’re not even trying here.” She sank down, half fell onto her ass, and then just sat staring miserably up at the indifferent statue. “So much for second chances,” she said softly, and she was no longer sure who she was talking about. She sniffed back an errant tear, then froze when she heard the voice, familiar but strangely tentative, just behind her.
“A second chance and a last chance are very different things.”
…
He should have been long gone by now.
Meresin watched Dru turn, her fine features momentarily dappled by the faint light that came in through the stained-glass window adjacent to where she sat. She seemed…“surprised” wasn’t the word for it. She looked for a moment as though she’d seen a ghost, and he wondered if she even recognized him. Then her eyes lit with recognition and confusion and finally relief—it was impossible to miss even if he still couldn’t understand it.
Why did she want him here? Why had she bothered to come to him earlier? It was the latter question that had bothered him enough to keep him close by when he should have been miles away by now. And the woman had kissed him again! That light, quick press of her lips to his cheek, a gentle touch on skin that had known so little of that, had left him reeling. Dru would laugh at him if she knew he’d spent the next hour perched back on the roof of this very church, his hand pressed to the spot she’d kissed. Or…maybe she wouldn’t. She destroyed his assumptions about her as fast as he could make them. He kept waiting for her to want something from him. So far, all she actually seemed to want was his presence. His safety. Him.
There had to be an angle he was missing.
He flexed his fists nervously. He’d been a feared warrior in Hell because he’d embraced his essential inhumanity—he was cold, distant, alien, and vicious. Now, there was all this unfamiliar heat. Some of it was from the strengthening lightning.
But a lot of it came from the woman in front of him.
“Meresin?” Her voice was soft and wondering, and he could smell the tequila on her breath from where he stood in the shadows. He’d done a lot of watching her tonight, trying to understand the compulsion to jealously guard what wasn’t his. Trying to understand why he couldn’t seem to leave.
Not everyone wants you to stay gone. But…why?
He stepped out of the shadows, though only a single step. Getting too close to Dru was…uncomfortable. The way her eyes drank him in was a fire in his blood.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her half whisper filling up the empty space. “I thought you were long gone.”
He hesitated. He hadn’t planned to reveal himself, so he didn’t have any kind of answer to share. It was her plea for him, so unexpected, that had drawn him inside. No one gave a damn whether he lived or died. No one. Except, apparently, Dru. And he’d given her no reason to feel that way. But here she was, a pagan out of time, upbraiding the angelic hierarchy on his behalf in a temple not her own.
“I sit on the roof here sometimes,” he finally said. “Thinking. I saw you come in.” It was a lie, but a plausible one. He would never admit that he’d been nearby in the shadows all evening. He’d seen every shot of tequila. Every playful dance with one of his brothers. Every distant, unhappy look when she thought no one was paying attention.
Dru struggled to rise, her long limbs tangling before her natural grace reasserted itself. Her pale blond hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she pushed it out of her face with one hand while bracing herself against the base of the statue with the other. He let his eyes skim her, from bare feet to the dark jeans that clung to her long legs, to the sleeveless, shapeless shirt that somehow managed to be even more tantalizing than one of her corsets. And, of course, the expressive, watchful eyes that burned crimson in the dark. He doubted she had any idea how hungry she looked.
Or what it was doing to him.
Every instinct he had, honed from years of battle, screamed at him that there was danger in her approach. Still, he stood his ground. Slinking away from her over and over again was humiliating. He had slain monsters and men, had called the lightning and forced it to do his bidding. He ought to be able to deal with one inebriated vampire.
“Why did you come in?” she asked. Her brow creased. “I know you don’t like me. You could’ve pointed and laughed from the roof.” She hiccupped softly and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
“Why would I laugh?” he asked.
“I’m wrecked.”
“I noticed.”
Dru pressed her lips together and exhaled loudly through her nose, and he nearly did laugh. It was only the shock of finding something funny in the first place that kept him from making a sound. She was so very…disgruntled. And disheveled. And delicious.
Did she really think he didn’t like her? “Like” wasn’t the word for it.
“Just answer my question, damn it,” Dru said, her irreverent whisper taking on an edge. He watched, fascinated, as her feet tried to wind themselves around one another again and take her down. Staying upright seemed to be taking a lot of concentration.
“My brothers handle their liquor better than you do,” he said, knowing it would annoy her. Sure enough, her eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, well, I don’t even think demons can get drunk, so it’s not a fair comparison. Also, screw you.” He raised his eyebrows and watched, fascinated, as she tottered right up to him and poked a finger into his chest. “I bet…I bet I’m doing better than you would. Mr. I-Know-Everything.”
“You’ll never find out,” he said. He shouldn’t be all right with her touching him. He hated being touched. Except, when she was doing it. At least a poke with a finger was safer by far than a caress, or her hand on his bare skin. An image flickered through his thoughts unbidden, of Dru’s long fingers stroking his bare chest, and he shuddered. His c*ck was rigid.
She was watching him curiously. He ground his teeth, forcing himself not to move, silently willing her not to drop her eyes. She appeared to sense something was wrong. He didn’t want her to know what.
“Why won’t I find out?” she asked. “’Fraid to drink with me, tough guy?”
“I…don’t drink,” he forced out. The admission startled her. He wondered how she would look if she knew what else he didn’t do. Hadn’t done. Ever.
“You don’t drink,” she repeated quietly. “Uh, okay. That’s…unexpected. And a lot different from your friends.”
He lifted one of his hands, cupped his palm, and willed it to dance with violet lightning. It cracked from fingertip to fingertip, and Dru’s eyes tracked it as it jumped and flickered before she lifted her eyes to his again.
“How well do you think it would go if I lost control?” he asked.
He wasn’t sure she even knew she had moved closer. Her eyes were like flames, fixed intently on his face. Most demons were wise enough not to stare and provoke him. But with Dru, he didn’t—couldn’t—mind. His chest felt strangely tight, his breath growing shallow.
“I thought demons liked losing control. I didn’t think they cared what happened.”
“Drusilla, I’m a conduit for a force of nature. It wants out. Lightning doesn’t care where it goes—friend, foe, or my own body.”
That seemed to startle her. “You could accidentally kill yourself?”
“All it would take is a bathtub and a bad mood.”
“But you’re always in a bad mood,” she pointed out.
“Then imagine what a bad drunk I’d probably be.”
She looked exasperated, pursing lips that were ruby red even in the dark. “You don’t know that. Maybe you’d be one of those drunks that hugs everyone and then cries because you love the world.”
Now she was just being contrary, which didn’t surprise him. Not when he’d seen her spar with everyone who crossed her path, usually wearing a wicked grin. There was no grin now, but she was only two feet away from him, angling her body into his in a way that made it clear every bit of her was attuned to him. He cast about desperately for something that would break the spell she was weaving around him, making him want to get even closer.
“That’s as likely as me ending up barefoot in a church and shouting at a statue, waiting for it to talk back. I might be evil, but I’m not insane.”
Hellfire, he could smell her, her singular warm and exotic vanilla musk with just a hint of peach. Ripe, juicy, sink-your-teeth-into-me peach. His mouth watered, and no amount of his iron willpower could stop it. In frustration, he tore his eyes from Dru’s and tried to focus on the elegant, slightly ridiculous statue of the angel with the flowers.
If humans only knew. Not an angel had been made that couldn’t turn deadly when the need arose. He tried to picture Uriel skipping through a field, his arms full of flowers, and felt the corners of his lips quirking.
The sharp poke of a nail into his abdomen was decidedly less funny.
“What the hell? Are you laughing at me?” Dru sounded irate, her words less slurred than they had been.
“No,” he replied, looking down at her.
“Then what? You think it’s funny that you could accidentally kill yourself with your own power? Or maybe you think I’m the joke?”
“No.”
She looked thoroughly exasperated with him. Then, just when he was beginning to enjoy the way it made her cheeks flush, her expression turned thunderstruck. The change was so quick it unnerved him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You,” she replied, sounding more than a little amazed. Then she smiled, and it was like the full moon breaking through the clouds on the blackest night. “You’re teasing me,” she said, “aren’t you?” Then she began to laugh, a bright ripple of sound that was both out of place and welcome in the dark, silent church.
The sound of it pleased him more than he would ever admit. Had he been teasing her? The bizarre heat he’d been grappling with lately warmed his cheeks, an odd and not altogether pleasant sensation.
“And now you’re blushing,” she said, still smiling with her voice as warm as his skin. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“Yes, well, I’m full of surprises,” he muttered, beginning to back away. He had a sudden urge to vanish into the shadows again, to do what he should have done in the first place and leave. It might sting his pride, but that was the least of his worries. Dru had noted his movement, though, and was having none of it.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said, her eyes hardening an instant before she reached for him. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but he had spent so many years with others actively avoiding his touch that he couldn’t seem to anticipate when Dru would make one of these moves. Which meant that once again, he could do little more than watch as she caught him, fisting her hand in the material of his shirt. And as always, at the barest hint of her touch, his limbs decided to quit working. All he could do was freeze and wait to see what she would do. This time, she gave his shirt a tug and closed the distance between them with surprising speed and grace.
“I don’t know why I bother telling you not to do that,” he said, looking down at her upturned face. She wore a soft, sly smile that promised untold pleasures. He’d never seen that particular smile from her before. Not from anyone. Never for him.
“Maybe because you remember me doing this,” she said. Dru rose up on her toes and brushed her nose against his. He stayed very still, watching her eyes slip shut as her breath fanned his face, boozy but sweet. His heart kicked into an uncertain rhythm when skin brushed skin, and then escalated into a wild gallop. Her hand unclenched against his chest and splayed there, only thin material separating them. Meresin stayed still, barely able to drink in a breath as he waited to see what she would do, anticipating the press of her lips against his. Instead, he heard a breath that was almost a laugh, and her eyes opened a little to regard him. She didn’t move away. He couldn’t move at all.
“Your heart is pounding,” she whispered. “I can feel it. I just wish I knew whether it’s because you want this or because you just…really, really don’t.”
He swallowed hard. Words refused to come, maybe because his mouth had gone as dry as the Sahara. One of her brows arched, and she tipped her head just a little to graze her lips over the sensitive skin of his jaw, teasing the corner of his mouth. Such a small bit of contact, and yet it rippled through his entire body. His lips parted on a moan he had trouble keeping silent. Every muscle in his body tensed, strained. She made him imagine things he’d never thought he would want, and some things he’d only heard about in passing. His fevered mind was more than happy to supply some very interesting visuals anyway.