Angel's Redemption Read online

  A ribbon of awareness threaded the space between them, drawing him closer. She took an automatic step back. Because even though her body responded to him, she could never forget that, somewhere in this space, was the man who’d once been her everything.

  “I didn’t realize you’d arrived,” she said in a guarded tone.

  “Just now.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “We figured you could use some human badassery on your side.”

  That they could. And Ruby’s rebels fit the bill. They’d been training for years for a prospective war with the angels. If any humans stood a chance against angelkind, it was them.

  Adam’s face darkened. “I heard about Mara and Ben.”

  His words sparked an unexpected tremor of sorrow deep in her spine. She sucked in a breath, and when Adam winced, she knew he felt the depth of her pain. Since angels and nephilim had the ability to sense others’ emotions, she’d learned at an early age to mask hers. But intense feelings still escaped her. Mara’s death had hit her hard. She was the only female Fallen left.

  “The Tribunal will pay for what they’ve done.”

  “I know,” Adam said easily. Then he shocked her by stepping closer.

  Sucking in a breath, Lily warily watched him.

  She knew he was interested. It would have been impossible for him not to be. Angel blood called to angel blood. It was the way of their kind, the method by which their species was perpetuated. The fact that he was a half-blood didn’t diminish that.

  But even though Adam was attracted to her, he was also reasonably intelligent. He knew Seth would probably kill him, and since she hadn’t led him on, he’d kept his distance.

  Not this time.

  Maybe it was her pain that called to him. She didn’t know, but she had to put a stop to it.

  “Adam—”

  His expression ripe with concern, he brought his hand to her chin and lifted her face so he could examine her. Checking for bruises, she realized. Her heart twisted in her chest.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he murmured.

  “I’ll survive,” she whispered back. Unlike those who’d been felled by the Tribunal, she thought to herself.

  When a sliver of desire wafted over her skin, she stifled a shiver. “Adam… you shouldn’t touch me.”

  “Sorry.” His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “I couldn’t help myself. I generally have better self-control than that.”

  Ah, so it was her, unintentionally calling to him. She couldn’t blame herself. Right now she felt so raw and vulnerable. She needed someone to hold her, and Adam was here. Things were so much easier with him than with Seth. How could they not be? There weren’t years of conflict and heartache between them.

  Adam took a breath, as if steeling himself, and continued on. “But you know how I feel about you, right?”

  “Adam.” Against her better judgment, she lifted her hand to cover his and took comfort in his soft touch. “You know nothing could happen between us.”

  Defiance flashed in his eyes. “Why not?”

  “You know why,” she whispered.

  His jaw tightened. “You don’t want him anymore. It’s not as if you’re doomed to be stuck with him forever. Not if you don’t want to be. Or am I wrong?”

  That was the thing. Yes, he was technically right. Even though angels generally mated for life, they could become unmated if they failed to have sexual relations for a prolonged period of time. But she would never be free. Much as she might wish otherwise, her essence was entangled in Seth’s. In a way, he was a part of her.

  She gave an unconscious lick of her lips. “Adam, I—”

  A familiar tingle wound between her shoulder blades, alerting her to the presence of the man who hadn’t yet entered the room, but she didn’t have time to react. The door slid open before she could move, and Seth strode through.

  Despite the bruises on his face and bare chest, he looked every bit as devastatingly handsome as he always did. He wore his signature black leather pants, and his thick, defined chest was bare. He was, in essence, sin personified.

  His presence electrified her nerve endings, hardening her nipples into tight buds and stroking a ribbon of pleasure down the center of her body. At the same time, old and familiar feelings of anger and betrayal churned in her stomach. She steeled her spine against it, slipping backward out of Adam’s reach.

  Hot, furious anger flashed through the room, instantly increasing the temperature by several degrees. Seth’s rabid gaze landed on Adam, and his hands clenched into fists. There was no mistaking his reaction or what it bespoke. It had been inevitable really, from the first moment Adam had entered the picture.

  There was going to be trouble.

  Chapter Two

  The moment Seth entered the tiny kitchen and saw Adam with his hands on Lily, a cacophony of emotions flooded the room. The majority of them were his. This nephilim, this child, had dared to touch what was his, and base instinct urged him to tear the man apart. Then an undertone of Adam’s defiance cut through the space, only serving to further egg him on.

  A growl tore from his throat, and his hands curled into his fists, but when Lily tensed and stepped pointedly in front of Adam, he came to his senses. She looked fierce and undeniably beautiful, and the expression in her eyes said point-blank that he was treading down a dangerous path.

  Much as he might want to, he couldn’t retaliate simply because Adam had dared touch Lily. The rational part of him even understood that Adam couldn’t help himself. It didn’t stop him from wanting to kill the man with his bare hands, but he would refrain.

  Because he no longer had the right.

  Lily’s eyes flashed with challenge. “What is it?”

  You let him touch you.

  He didn’t speak the accusation, but her back stiffened as if she’d heard it anyway. No doubt, she felt his anger and pain.

  She opened her mouth to respond when the door flew open right behind him.

  Michael’s voice shattered the tense silence. “What’s happening here?”

  Taking a hard, deep breath, Seth forced himself to relax. “Nothing,” he said very deliberately.

  “Good.” Michael turned his gaze to Lily. “I have a meeting scheduled with the vice president. He’s hidden away at a secret location in Philadelphia. I want you and Seth to go with me. We’ll be leaving in less than half an hour.”

  Lily gave Michael one short nod.

  Placing his hand on Seth’s shoulder, Michael guided him into turning around and led him out of the kitchen.

  The caveman within Seth protested at the thought of leaving Lily alone with Adam, but he knew Michael was only trying to diffuse the situation.

  Nothing’s going to happen between them, at least, not in the half hour before they were due to leave.

  And if it did, what right did he have to complain about it?

  That bitter pill burned like acid in his stomach as he followed Michael down the corridor and away from Lily.

  *****

  Lily strode toward the iron door that separated the underground rebel base from the rest of the world, stopping only long enough to allow Ruby to pull her in for a hasty hug.

  Ruby and Jason were staying behind to observe the comings and goings at the angel tower from the multitude of cameras Ruby and her rebels had strung up throughout the city. Between that and Aaron and Ethan’s search efforts, they all remained hopeful they’d track down one or more members of the Tribunal. The angels were nothing if not creatures of comfort and habit, and the Central Park tower was their home. Odds were, they’d attempt to return to where they felt safest.

  Michael and Seth were already waiting aboveground, inside the abandoned Brooklyn warehouse that the tunnel exit led into.

  After taking the ladder up, Lily replaced the manhole cover.

  Michael practically bristled with impatience. Seeing him filled Lily with the same sorrow that had wound through her this past week. His features were so similar to Mara’s, and she knew th
at out of all of them, he grieved her death the most. Given that angel births were very rare, it was even rarer still to have a sibling. Michael and Mara had been so lucky to have one another, which meant he must be suffering deeply right now.

  When Michael’s eyes clouded with pain, she knew he’d sensed her bleak emotions. She forced the thoughts from her mind. They would only serve as an unwelcome distraction right now, and that was something they could ill afford.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  Nodding, Michael handed her one of the two flame torches he held in his hands. Seth also carried one, and they held them aloft, but unlit, as Michael led them through the empty, abandoned warehouse. The matches they each carried would be used to light the torches in the event they ran into undesired company in the form of white-winged angels.

  As one, they strode out to the banks of the East River. It was deep winter still. A sharp wind blew, sending flecks of snow swirling all around them, and the ground was covered in a blanket of white. Given that it was nighttime and the angel curfew was in effect, there was no one around to mar the quiet beauty of the fallen snow.

  Thankfully, their kind didn’t feel cold and heat the way humans did, because Michael and Seth were bare-chested, and she wore nothing more over her upper body than a tank top with crisscrossing straps to accommodate her wings.

  Following Michael’s lead, she flexed her back to spark the growth of her wings and shot up into the sky. The wind buffeted her face, which was pure and refreshing after days of being cooped up underground. Some of the weight in her chest eased as she fell into line beside Seth and Michael. As adept as her kind were at playing human, they would always remain creatures of the sky. This was where she belonged, with her wings beating against the powerful wind.

  Wordlessly, Michael zoomed ahead of them, leading the way toward the secret location in Philadelphia. He was clearly giving them privacy, and part of her resented that, even as she understood it.

  There was so much unfinished business between her and Seth, and always would be, she feared.

  Tension filled the air as she and Seth flew side by side. It wasn’t a far flight to the location they’d been given, but with the heavy silence that rested between them, it would no doubt seem like an eternity.

  Except this time, he didn’t remain quiet.

  “Are you considering being with Adam?” he said, his voice grim but determined.

  She missed a beat and dropped several feet in the air.

  Beating twice as hard to regroup, she said, “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because of what I saw.”

  Shame filled her at the thought that he’d seen Adam’s hand on her cheek, her hand on his. It wasn’t her intention to make him jealous. She knew firsthand how horrible that felt, like a clawing, grappling hand squeezing your aching heart in its fist.

  Despite everything, she still loved Seth. Always would.

  Then came the ever-present anger. Why should she worry about his pain when he hadn’t been concerned for hers?

  “I don’t know,” she snapped. “It’s none of your business.”

  Seth flapped his wings hard, propelling around to snatch her into his arms.

  Startled, she folded her wings into her back.

  “That’s not true, and you know it,” he bit out, his eyes flashing with heat. “Whose business is it if not mine?”

  Old, familiar resentment filled her chest. “Anything I do ceased to be your concern the moment you fell in love with a human.”

  She shoved at him, and he released her. Ribbons of his emotions trailed over to her: shame and lust and sorrow and regret.

  Well, he could keep them. She had enough of her own to worry about.

  Stretching her wings out wide, Lily zoomed to catch up with Michael.

  Chapter Three

  The vice president and certain members of his administration had managed to escape to a hideout located on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Seth had to admit he was impressed. He didn’t think the humans had it in them to keep such a secret from the angels, but somehow, they’d managed to amass an entire room full of communication equipment without arousing the suspicion of the Tribunal.

  “I want to record a message,” the vice president was in the process of telling Michael as they conversed in the basement of the house now serving as the presidential base. “Explain to them why you and your fellow angels were really condemned to death, and that you’re on our side. If they see that we have support from your kind, it may give them hope. A reason to fight back.”

  It was certainly worth a try.

  The vice president gave an empty laugh. “Maybe they’ll believe in Christmas miracles.”

  Angels didn’t celebrate the human holiday, but Seth knew enough about it to know it was a very important day to many humans. The thought that they had to spend what should be a day of hope fearing for their very existence made him long for a curse upon the angels who’d once been his family.

  “I can get a video to my contact at the news station,” he said to the two men.

  So with that, Michael and the vice president fell into discussion on what they would say, and less than an hour later, they were being recorded as they made their speech.

  Seth took his place by Lily as she watched the discourse from the sidelines, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on what the two men were saying. It was Lily who invaded his mind. She was so close, close enough that her natural scent flooded his senses. Yet mentally she was so far away.

  Anything I do ceased to be your concern the moment you fell in love with a human.

  The words burned into him, assaulting him with their veracity. She was right, and it killed him. He’d never stopped loving Lily, but the day he’d met Isabelle, part of him had been lost to her. It had been so wholly unexpected, so shocking to feel those feelings for a human and someone he’d just met.

  Someone who wasn’t Lily.

  But something about Isabelle had been so sweet and innocent. She’d been vulnerable in a way Lily never had been, and it had called to him.

  Though he’d never touched Isabelle, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from stealing away to spend stolen moments with her. He had betrayed Lily’s heart.

  That was why he knew he deserved every bit of the torture he was enduring now. If Lily chose to take Adam as her mate, he’d have no reason to protest, and that knowledge burned deep within his soul.

  It wasn’t until Michael stood before him that Seth realized he and the vice president had completed their video recording.

  “The vice president’s man should be finished editing the video within the half hour. We want to get it out right away. Can you arrange a meeting with your contact in such a short period of time?”

  “Yes,” Seth said. “I’ll call him now.”

  Michael nodded. “Afterward, I’d like you to meet with Nate and Rick. They’ve finished making another batch of the flame torches. We’ll need to get those to the rebels so they can start distributing them amongst the population.”

  The flame torches the Fallen had reverse engineered, after grabbing one during a fight with the white-wings, were far from ordinary. They burned with such intensity that an angel struck with the fire was incinerated almost instantly. It was an effective tool against his kind, the only weapon that worked on angels, and now that war had been declared, their fellow Fallen angel, Nate, along with one of Ruby’s rebels had been working almost nonstop to mass produce the weapons at an abandoned factory they’d discovered in western New Jersey.

  “Done,” Seth said.

  Michael’s gaze strayed to Lily. “You’ll need to go along to help carry the torches back.”

  She stiffened, no doubt because the thought of spending even an hour alone with him made her skin crawl. But, ever the warrior, she only nodded.

  “If we can gather even a small army of trained human fighters, we stand a chance,” Michael murmured.

  It was all too true. Though angels were much stro
nger and nearly invincible, there were so few of them. Due to angel biology and the rarity of procreation, coupled with the fact that most of the older angels eventually chose to stop mating so they could grow old and die, there were only a few hundred angels in existence. If humans conquered their natural fear of the seemingly untouchable angels and fought back, if they had access to weapons that could actually harm them, then they could win.

  “If anyone can convince the humans to stand and fight, it’s Ruby and her rebels,” Lily said.

  Michael took a breath, then gave a decisive nod. “You’re right. So you two will go and get the weapons. Give them a reason to fight.”

  *****

  Less than an hour later, Lily stood outside the house, waiting for Seth while he confirmed the meeting location with his new station contact.

  Michael strode outside to hand her the video. “Take care with it.”

  Cocking a brow, she said, “You know I will.”

  He nodded, then glanced inside to where Seth stood, talking on the phone. A hint of uneasiness drifted from him, but he steeled his shoulders and turned his gaze back to her. “I’ve been meaning to catch you alone.”

  She eyed him warily. “Why?”

  Embarrassment wafted off him and his cheeks grew a shade pinker. “War has come. I know your situation with Seth is complicated, but you’re both going to need all the strength you can get.”

  His subtext was clear, and now it was her turned to be embarrassed. Humiliated, was more like it, and that pissed her off.

  Drawing up to her full height, which still put her well below Michael’s own, she set her hands on her hips. “Are you telling me I need to mate with him?”

  He shifted in his spot, breaking eye contact. She recognized it for the withdrawal it was, but he’d already roused her anger.

  “Are you ordering me to, is that what this is?”