Angel's Kiss Read online

  When his heart flopped in his chest, he strived to catch his breath. Ruby’s demeanor indicated she didn’t wish to be fawned over, and he’d respect that…even if everything in his body told him to stalk over to the woman and convince her she was his, and his alone. Preferably by running his lips, tongue, and mouth all over her trim, luscious body.

  Ruby turned to look at the pile of rubble. “Over a century ago, this place served as a subway tunnel, one of the first in the city. The pile of rocks you see is the remains of what used to be the subway entrance and the stairs leading down.”

  “So what happened here?” Nate asked as he dropped to the ground beside Jason.

  “At some point they decided to close down this tunnel, probably because it wasn’t used very much. So they filled in the tracks and bricked up the station, and over the years they built roads and such on top of it, until the tunnel became buried deep underground. Most people forgot all about it.”

  “Which is good for you,” Jason murmured.

  Her eyes wandered back to Jason, the molten depths of her gaze causing his gut to constrict and his whole body to hum with excitement. “Exactly.”

  The muscles in his chest flexed in primitive response to her honeyed voice, something she no doubt noticed, if the downward flicker of her gaze was any indication. Something tense and heavy filled the air between them, and she shifted and averted her eyes.

  Hell. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her away. Not now, when he’d just found her.

  Directing his attention back up the shaft from which they’d emerged, he motioned in an effort to distract her from his body’s primitive response to her. “The shaft looks like it’s been partially cast in iron.”

  She gave him a slow nod. “It has.”

  “Why?” Nate asked, the sound of his voice practically startling Jason. For one moment he’d forgotten there was anyone but him and Ruby in this cavernous space. His eyes met Nate’s, a silent wave of communication streaming between them. They would have to talk this out later, in private, but Jason knew one thing: there was no way in hell he was giving Ruby up. Nate might feel the call of her unmated essence, but no way could it outmatch what Jason felt for her.

  No way.

  “You know how angels can sense the presence of other angels and nephilim from a few miles away?” Ruby said, her gaze flicking over to Nate.

  “Yes,” Jason said before Nate could respond.

  “Well…” Her lips curved into a smile. “I discovered that iron helps to mask the essence. Depending on how far into the tunnel we are, even an angel standing right on top of the manhole might not be able to sense our presence below.”

  Jason’s mouth dropped open. Iron masked the angelic essence? That metal hadn’t existed back on their world, so they hadn’t known of its special properties, and it wasn’t as if any of angelkind had bothered to do research once they arrived on Earth. The Tribunal’s only agenda was using humans as labor to build their angel towers, after which they’d no longer be useful…and could be destroyed. The angels seemed to believe Earth would be a much better place once it was devoid of humans.

  Of course we know better.

  Which was why he and his fellow Fallen had been sentenced to die. The rest of the angels couldn’t afford to have them swaying the humans into realizing what the Tribunal’s true agenda was. Angels might be powerful, but with less than two hundred members in the entire species, they would be outmatched by humans in a flat-out war.

  “How, may I ask, did you discover that iron masks the angelic essence?” Jason asked.

  Ruby exchanged a quick, loaded glance with Michael. When he nodded in obvious reassurance, she turned her gaze back toward Jason and Nate. “Michael tells me that nephilim can sometimes have uncanny abilities.”

  Jason nodded. “Tayla can find lost objects, and Aaron’s mate Samantha can mask her essence.”

  “Well, I can do something too.” She took a breath, looking hesitant for the first time since he’d met her. “When I was still young, we discovered that I could sense my father’s arrival before he could sense my presence.”

  Beside Jason, Nate sucked in his breath. “You mean—”

  “My sensory range is over twice that of a full-blooded angel’s. Close to ten miles.”

  Jason let out an impressed whistle. “That gives you quite an edge over other angels.”

  “Exactly.” She nodded once, sharply. “My father found it interesting, and we started to experiment, see if anything would cut down on that range. We discovered that if there was iron between us, it not only blocked my sensory perception of him, but vice versa. Somehow he thought that might come in handy someday.”

  She gave them a brittle smile.

  Ruby still mourns her father.

  No big realization there. After all, Jason still mourned the loss of his mate in the fire, though perhaps not as much as Nate. The man would get lost in visions of the past at times, his eyes glazing over and his whole body growing still, as if he relived in his mind the events of that horrible, fateful day in which he lost his beloved.

  “Is that how you contacted Michael?” Jason asked, gently redirecting the conversation into safer territory. “You sought him out using your gift?”

  “Sort of.” Turning, she started down the stairs and continued speaking without looking back. “Over the years, I’ve developed some expertise in camera wiring. Using my ability, and with help from my crew, I’ve been able to strategically set up over a dozen cameras throughout the city. I’ve used them to monitor the comings and goings of the Tribunal members and other angels visiting the Central Park tower.”

  Jason took the stairs down, falling into place besides Michael on the last step.

  Michael shot him a grin. “Imagine my surprise when I feel the essence of a nephilim, and minutes later she strides up to me and tells me she found me through her private surveillance system.”

  “Surprising, I’m sure,” Jason managed.

  Ruby turned back with a smirk. “After I saw Michael’s black wings when he landed and determined he was a Fallen, it was an easy enough matter to track him down before he left. I explained to him what I am and how I can help.”

  “Help?” Jason asked.

  Cocking a brow at him, Ruby whirled back around and started down the long, narrow tunnel at the base of the stairs. The worn cobblestone floor was jagged and uneven, and the space went on for about fifty feet before ending with another brick wall. It would have been pitch dark if not for a pair of small, electric sconces set into the wall on either side of a closed iron door.

  “We’ve been training for years,” she said. “Recruiting others whenever possible. We can help you.”

  “Help with what?” Nate said from right behind Jason, the confusion in his tone matching Jason’s.

  “With the war,” she said matter-of-factly. Grabbing onto the iron handle, she yanked on the door. It creaked open to reveal a large chamber that was at least twice as wide and tall as the tunnel. But the sheer size of the room wasn’t the most surprising part, not by a longshot. It was that the room served as a base of operations. The apparent objective: spy on the angels.

  What looked to be twenty or so flat screen monitors had been set up on several long, collapsible tables, and four men who appeared to range in age from late teens to mid-30s sat in front of them. The views from the monitors were unmistakable. These were the images from the cameras Ruby had set up throughout the city. At least four of the cameras appeared to be from inside Central Park. Right now, at this time of night, the city was eerily deserted. But then, it was past curfew time. No humans were allowed to be wandering outside, for ‘their own protection’, as the angels liked to pretend, and the white-wings rarely ventured out from their towers to wander amongst what they considered to be the filth of mankind.

  “Holy shit,” Jason muttered as he followed Michael and Ethan inside.

  Ruby speared him with her amused gaze. Snorting, she said, “I didn’t think angels
could curse like that.”

  He met her gaze head-on, and he didn’t fail to notice the way she almost imperceptibly flinched and shifted to the side. “You’re thinking of your mythological, biblical-creation angels.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Turning, she motioned toward the large room. “As you can see, this is our central command. It’s where we keep an eye on the comings and goings of the angels and the Consortium.”

  Jason stepped closer to one of the tables, and the two men seated there gave him a glance that read half curiosity, half suspicion. He gave them an assured nod before saying, “This is quite an operation you have going.”

  “It is,” she agreed, stuffing one of her hands into the back pocket of her jeans. “Our objective has been to gain physical evidence of the angels’ deception, but they’ve proven to be very tight-lipped out in the open, not that they even leave their tower much. And since we haven’t figured out a way to sneak surveillance into the tower, we’re sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

  “Which is where we come in,” Michael said.

  Ah…now things were starting to get interesting. Tearing his gaze from Ruby’s expressive face, Jason gave Michael his full attention. “How so?”

  Michael gave Jason a loaded glance. “I told Ruby about our failed attempt to plant surveillance in the Alaskan prison. She wants to help us give it another go.”

  The previous month, Aaron’s mate Samantha had attempted to break into a secret facility the angels had built in Alaska for the purpose of imprisoning and murdering high-ranking human officials. Given her ability to mask her nephilim essence and her skills as a cat burglar, she’d seemed their best chance to achieve their goal. She’d failed. Not only that, but she’d almost been killed in the process.

  Ultimately they had lost Zach, one of their fellow Fallen, during their attempt, and had barely escaped with their lives. But they had to go back. They needed some hard proof of the angels’ true agenda. The humans would simply be unwilling to accept the truth of their deception otherwise. They’d been successfully brainwashed into believing that angels had their best interests at heart.

  “Wow,” Nate murmured from beside Jason.

  Michael lifted a brow. “I think it’s a good plan. With Ruby and Samantha working in concert, they should be able to do it. But I need to track down Samantha and Aaron, and they’re somewhere in Alaska, keeping an eye on the angel activity up there.”

  “Did you try calling Aaron’s cell phone?” Jason asked.

  “He’s shut it off. He didn’t want to risk being tracked. So I’m going to need to fly over there and find him.”

  Made sense. Jason nodded at Michael. “I can help you find him.”

  “No.” A half grin creeping to his face, Michael said, “I have another task for you and Nate.”

  Something about Michael’s expression made Jason instantly suspicious. “What’s that?”

  Michael motioned toward Ruby. “Ruby and her gang are right. War is coming. Sooner rather than later. They’ve trained to fight angels, but there’s much they don’t know about defending themselves against our kind.”

  When Jason’s gaze landed back on Ruby, she made a face. “Much as I’d like to deny it, it’s true. We need to know what it’s like to go up against real angels.”

  “You mean—”

  “I want you to stay here and teach them how to fight our kind,” Michael finished.

  The reason for Michael’s amusement suddenly became clear. Michael knew full well what hell Jason and Nate would be in, staying here with an unmated nephilim. Just as he no doubt knew the odds were one of them would eventually claim her.

  He was matchmaking, the dog. And Ruby wasn’t even aware of it, or if she was, their presence was too beneficial to her cause for her to protest.

  Jason barely stifled the chuckle that longed to clear his throat. “Train them?” He let his gaze wash over Ruby, and from the stiffening of her limbs, knew she felt it, even if she wouldn’t meet his glance head-on. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Chapter Three

  Early the next morning, Ruby crawled from her full-sized mattress, indulging in a quick yawn and stretch before stepping to her makeshift closet and digging out a fitted thermal shirt in a deep hunter green and a worn pair of jeans. She and the others might have managed to create some of the creature comforts of home over the past few years—tiny bedrooms, a kitchen of sorts, a couple of holes in the wall that served as bathrooms, with a pull-chain toilet, and shower using water siphoned by pipes from a nearby aqueduct, and electricity pilfered from aboveground—but they hadn’t yet been able to route any sort of heat down here. Since they were out of the elements, it was considerably warmer than living on the streets, but still not warm enough to go without a layer or two of clothes covering her body.

  As it had so many times throughout the past twelve hours, her mind wandered to the two new Fallen. Specifically, to Jason. She’d known she would feel attraction to them. Dealing with the natural allure put out by Michael and Ethan had been difficult enough, and Tayla had warned her it would be far worse with an unmated male. But damn…she hadn’t expected their presence would spark a constant ache deep in her belly, or buffet her with wave after wave of gripping desire.

  Sleep had been all but impossible. She’d been besieged by dreams of yummy dark-haired men with glowing green eyes, luscious black wings, and spice-scented bodies made for sin.

  Get over it, Ruby. He’s not for you.

  Nobody was. She’d learned that harsh lesson at the tender age of thirteen, when she’d witnessed her mother’s anguish over the loss of her father. She had braved on for Ruby’s sake, and to honor the memory of her lost love, but she’d never been the same. Ruby had vowed never to succumb to the lure of love. In the end it only led to a broken heart.

  Just as she was about to leave, a sharp knock sounded out on the wooden door that had been fit into the carved-out stone. Striding toward it, she yanked it open to reveal Adam, her longest-standing partner in crime, and the only other nephilim in their group.

  “Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” he said with a grin.

  She scowled at him. “I was already awake.”

  He gave an easy shrug. “Just busting your balls.”

  After stepping out into the narrow corridor, she shut the door to her room then fell into line beside Adam. They started down the path toward the large recreation room set into the far end of their base.

  “Figured you probably didn’t get much sleep after your meeting with the new dudes last night.”

  She snorted. “Angels, not dudes.”

  “Whatever.”

  Ruby’s gaze wandered to his profile. For not the first time, she noted how good-looking he was—a clear mark of his angelic blood. His face was perfectly symmetrical, the stark angles and lines giving him a heroic countenance. Even though he attempted to mask his looks with a thick five o’clock shadow, the beauty shone through all that scruffy brown hair, as evidenced by the fact that every single woman in their group had the hots for him. Yet his presence had never made her blood sing the way Jason’s had.

  That angel is a shitload of trouble.

  The only problem was, she couldn’t afford to stay away from him. Not when he and his fellow Fallen had so much to teach her and her gang. They might have learned how to be damned scrappy, but they’d never gone up against the strength and speed of an angel.

  So you’ll just have to be strong.

  Yeah…no freaking problem.

  Shoveling her inner sarcastic bitch aside, she focused on Adam. “Want to run the training this morning?”

  “Fuck, yeah!” A wide grin transformed his face. He turned his gaze toward her. “But what will you be doing if I’m doing your job?”

  “I’ll observe with the new Fallen, just for today. See what pointers they can give me.”

  His gaze darkened just a fraction. “Maybe I should be the one doing that.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “
I think they’d expect the leader of the group to walk them through everything.”

  “Yeah, but the leader is a single female, and they’re single males,” he said bluntly. “Need I further point out the dangers involved here?”

  His words coaxed a smile to her face. “You worried about me?”

  Two bright spots of color marred his cheeks, and he directed his focus toward the path ahead. “So what if I am?”

  She stifled the urge to chuckle. “That’s sweet of you, Adam, but I think I can handle myself. Besides, if I can resist your charms, then those Fallen don’t stand a chance against me.”

  He said nothing, but from the way he slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and slightly hunched over, she knew she’d struck a nerve. Instant regret flamed through her. She wasn’t an idiot. Anyone could see that Adam had a thing for her. But she’d always assumed it was a case of puppy love, stemming from the moment she and her mother had discovered him on the streets, orphaned and alone. Besides, the crush he had on her was nothing compared to how he’d felt for her mom. He’d been almost as devastated as she when her mother had grown sick and died.

  “Listen,” she said, placing a hand on his back in a gesture of solidarity. “You know you and me are the best fighters here. I need you to show them what we’ve got. The Tribunal is gathering forces, preparing to make their move. We need to find out how close we are to being able to take those fuckers on.”

  He nodded and met her eyes, his gaze firm and resolved. “You can count on me.”

  The dimly lit corridor took on more light as they approached the entrance to the recreation room, which was lit up in orange, artificial lighting. Every Friday night the group gathered here to watch whatever movie their resident thief, Robbie, had managed to pilfer, but the mornings were reserved for training. Hand-to-hand combat. Ultimately their battle with the angels would come down to this. Angels had all but destroyed guns, rifles, and weapons of mass destruction when they’d taken over rule of Earth. The angels hadn’t believed they needed manmade weapons to lord over humans, and they were right. In the end all they’d needed were their silver tongues and their showy wings.