Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) (26 page)

“This is so messed up,” Jordan blurted out. “Everything I hear
is seriously blowing my mind. Are you all for real? You’re literally making
Samantha look like the only sane or smart one in this room right now.”

Coming from Jordan, that nearly sounded like a compliment.

“Red’s mouthy,” Kraven said. “Could be a problem.”

“What are you going to do?” I challenged him. “Kill her,
too?”

“Don’t give me any ideas, sweetness.”

Then Stephen grunted, low and weak. He was waking up.
Everyone’s attention shot to the restrained super-gray. He raised his head with
effort and blinked open his eyes. There was dried blood on his forehead from
where he’d hit the wall twice.

He scanned the five of us, lingering on Jordan, before he ended
with Bishop. “Change of scenery, I see?”

Bishop had already drawn the dagger out and I eyed its sharp
edge with trepidation. “Time to talk, Stephen.”

“I like talking. When I feel like it.”

“Wait,” I said. “Stephen, are you better now?”

His forehead furrowed. “Better than what?”

“Before, you were so depressed. You wanted to die.” His
confused look told me everything I needed to know. “You were right, Bishop, the
effects of the angel’s touch fade if given enough time.”

“Good to know.” Bishop was silent for a moment. “You and Jordan
need to wait outside now.”

I turned a dark look at him. “And let you do your thing?”

His blue-eyed gaze remained neutral. “That’s right.”

“Your way of dealing with problems kind of freaks me out,
Bishop.”

“We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this subject.
There’s no time to argue.”

Stephen snorted. “Are you defending me, Sam? That’s so nice of
you.”

I spun to face him, anger heating my cheeks. “I should let him
carve you up. You haven’t done a damn thing to earn my trust or respect.
Everything you’ve done has been to hurt me. To hurt Jordan.”

His expression shadowed. “I never wanted to hurt her.”

“Are you serious?” Jordan sputtered. “You knocked me out, you
kept me prisoner. You nearly had a hobbit feast on my soul. What do you call
that? True love?”

He stared at her incredulously. “Yes, actually. I did all that
so we could be together again.”

I stared at the two of them, realizing that Stephen really did
this out of love for Jordan. This was one seriously twisted romance I was
witnessing.

Jordan let out a frustrated shriek, spun around and stormed out
of the room.

“Go with her,” Bishop advised.

His shoulders were tense as he clenched the dagger. His body
language showed his stress more than his even expression did. He didn’t want me
to see what he had to do to save my life.

How many times have you hurt someone to
get what you want?
I thought.
How many have you
killed on your missions for Heaven?

I couldn’t read his mind, but I knew the answer would probably
scare me very deeply.

Still, I didn’t budge from my spot.

Bishop groaned. “Samantha, you have to be difficult, don’t
you?”

“Don’t let him hurt me, Sam,” Stephen said tightly. “I did it
all for love. You get that, don’t you?”

I believed he did. And I also believed he was manipulative
enough to use my sympathy for that weakness against me.

Bishop wasn’t filled with patience tonight. He sheathed his
dagger, then took me by my arm, sending a shiver of electricity racing across my
skin. He then directed me out of the office and back into the sanctuary where
Jordan had fled to.

Cassandra joined us.

Bishop nodded toward Jordan. “Can you help with her,
Cassandra?”

The angel nodded, and approached the redhead who watched her
with a tense, guarded expression.

“What do you want?” Jordan asked sharply.

“Look at me.” Cassandra smiled when Jordan did what she asked.
“You need to go home now. It’s been a difficult ordeal for you, but it’s over.
Everything is okay. You don’t have to worry. Everything you’ve seen tonight, all
the strange and confusing things that have scared you—you’re going to forget
them. They’ll be like nothing more than a fading dream.”

Jordan blinked. “What are you, crazy or something? Get away
from me.”

Cassandra cleared her throat. “Um, it usually works much better
than this.”

“You’re losing your edge, Blondie,” Kraven said. He’d also left
the office, and now leaned casually against the back wall of the church.

“What are you doing out here?” Bishop asked.

“I follow the drama. It’s entertaining. Besides, Connor and
Roth have Mr. Tall, Gray and Devious under control. Don’t get your feathers
ruffled.”

I inhaled sharply as Bishop took my arm again. I’d been trying
my best to ignore it, but his soul was doing crazy things to my head right
now.

“You need to leave,” he said firmly.

“I can’t.”

“I can’t think when you’re here. And I need to be able to
think.”

The events of the night swirled around me, making me dizzy. So
much had happened I couldn’t process it all, but I didn’t want to leave. I slid
my hand down my leg to feel the leather sheath strapped to my thigh.

Suddenly, I remembered what it had held.

My eyes bugged and I grabbed the edge of Bishop’s shirt.
“Bishop...Stephen, he took my dagger earlier. He probably still has it.”

Clarity shone in his eyes, then he turned from me and stormed
out of the sanctuary and back to the office. The rest of us followed.

Connor lay unconscious on the floor near the wall, which now
bore an angel-sized dent. Roth lay on his back, gasping, the familiar, small
golden dagger protruding from his throat.

The wooden chair the super-gray had been seated in was now in
pieces.

Stephen had escaped.

Chapter 24

Cassandra let out a strangled cry and rushed to Roth’s
side. She pulled the dagger out and immediately set to work at healing him.

Kraven went to check on Connor, but thankfully he was already
starting to regain consciousness.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my chest so tight it was hard to
breathe normally. “I forgot all about the dagger. I should have said something
earlier. Now he’s gone.”

Bishop turned to me, and I expected to see anger in his eyes
that I’d been so thoughtless, but there was nothing like that. There was
frustration there, but it wasn’t directed at me.

“No.” He took my hand and squeezed it. “You’ve been through a
lot. You didn’t forget on purpose. This isn’t your fault.”

“Sure it is,” Kraven said.

Bishop sent a glare at him. “Actually, if you’d stayed in here
this could have been avoided.”

“Or I could be the one with the knife sticking out of me.” He
shrugged. “Maybe you’d like that.”

“Maybe I would.”

“Ouch.”

The anger fell from Bishop’s gaze as he turned from his brother
and, if you asked me, it was as if he regretted his harsh words. He kept my hand
in his like he needed the contact to keep his mind clear.

The longer I was near him, the
less
clear my head became.

“Connor, take Jordan home and make sure she stays there,”
Bishop instructed, his voice tight.

“Can’t,” Jordan said. “I have plans tonight.”

He looked at her with surprise. “You were kidnapped and
imprisoned in a locked basement storage room by your obsessed boyfriend for
nearly two days and you have plans?”

She glared at him. “I have a social life, you know. There’s a
huge Halloween party tonight I can’t miss. I spent a ton on my costume.”

Bishop gave me an exasperated look, which almost coaxed a smile
from me despite everything that had gone so horribly wrong.

I shrugged. “She says she has a costume.”

“I’m Cleopatra,” Jordan said, as if that explained everything.
She cocked her head. “Wait a minute. I think I’m remembering something
important.” Then she inhaled sharply. “When Stephen first found me, before he
knocked me out, I told him about the party. He seemed...interested in going. As
if it might make him feel normal again. He said we could go together.” Her eyes
moved back and forth rapidly as if she was remembering the moment in detail. “I
mean, obviously he was just playing games with me, trying to get closer so he
could grab me. But still, maybe he’ll show.”

“Where’s this party?” Bishop asked, his voice measured and
almost too calm.

“It’s Noah’s party.” Jordan looked at me. “You’re invited, too,
right? He has the hots for you, FYI.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, well, the feeling isn’t
mutual.”

“Gray-girl’s curious charm doesn’t seem to be lost on many,”
Kraven drawled, amused. “Hobbits are hot.”

“It’s not at his house,” I said, remembering what Kelly told me
in the school hall yesterday. “He found another place?”

“Yeah, an abandoned house in a private area on the far east
side of the city—at Oak and Peters. Thinks it’ll add a spooky touch. Figures it
might be busted, but that’s supposed to make it more exciting.” She crossed her
arms. “I’m going.”

I watched Bishop carefully for his reaction to the stubborn
redhead. “Connor, like I said, take Jordan home safely. What she does after that
is entirely up to her.” He shifted his gaze to his brother. “Kraven, go with
Roth to this party and keep an eye open for our gray friend. Connor can meet you
there later.”

“And if we see him?” Connor asked.

“Detain him. Any way possible.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed and there was a hard set to his jaw.
“With pleasure.”

They didn’t wait. They left, Jordan sending a glance back
toward me, but no goodbye. It would have been easier for her if the angelic
influence had worked. Whatever made her different, that gave her the
supernatural intuition, had prevented her from being influenced.

She would remember everything she’d seen, everything she’d
learned.

It was dangerous information for a seventeen-year-old. I should
know.

When they left, Bishop looked at Cassandra. “You’ll go with
Samantha back to her house. Wait for her outside the church, all right?”

“All right.” Cassandra glanced at me, then left the two of us
alone.

“And where will you go?” My chest clenched at the thought of
saying goodbye to him again.

“The others want me to stay away from you. I think we’ve
already proven how dangerous it can be when we’re too close.”

I swallowed hard. “Yeah, very dangerous. So where are you
headed?”

He held my gaze. “To your house.”

My brows rose. “What?”

He snorted softly at my surprised reaction. “I honestly don’t
care what anybody says, I’m not letting you out of my sight right now.
Understand?”

I just nodded, stunned he was even suggesting this. He could
have easily let Cassandra take me home and joined the others at the house
party.

But he wanted to stay with me.

He took hold of the small dagger now lying on the top of the
empty wooden desk. He wiped the blade on his jeans to clean it of Roth’s
blood.

“I believe this is yours.” He handed it to me. When I took it
from him, our fingers brushed against each other.

I returned it to its sheath under my skirt. “Thank you. I’m
sorry about what happened—”

“Don’t apologize. And Kraven’s wrong. It wasn’t your fault.
What Stephen did to you...” His expression darkened. “I could have killed him
for that.”

“Killing isn’t always the answer.”

“I know that.”

I swallowed hard. “I saw you kill Kraven. In your memory.”

He turned away, but I caught his arm.

“It wasn’t you,” I said firmly. “It couldn’t have been. There
has to be some other explanation why you’d do that.”

When his gaze met mine again, this time it was stormy. “It’s
funny, you seeing that memory.”

I laughed this time, a dry, humorless sound. “What’s so funny
about it?”

“Because...a lot of the details are a blank for me. But I
guess, somewhere in my head it’s all still there, crystal clear.” His brows drew
tightly together. “What happened with Kraven...he was my brother. We had our
problems, sure, but—I remember the cold certainty that came over me that night.
The knowledge that he had to die and that his soul was bound for Hell...but—” he
rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked away from me “—I don’t know why I
couldn’t stop myself from killing the one person who ever gave a damn about
me.”

I stared at him. This was the confirmation I’d been looking
for. “You can’t remember why you did it? Seriously?”

He gave me a wry look. “It doesn’t excuse what I did.”

“But in a way it does. It tells me you weren’t yourself at the
time.”

“But I still did it. Nobody else. You saw that yourself.”

I tried to figure it out, but failed miserably. “No matter what
you might have done, you’re still an angel. Your soul was not dark and heavy
enough to become a demon, so as horrible as it was, it must have been the right
thing to do at the time. You told me yourself—killing Kraven and sending him to
Hell is what helped you become an angel. There has to be a reason for that.”

“There was.” He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “There
was somebody on my side. Somebody who put in a good word for me—somebody who
also sent people to Hell whenever he got the chance.”

“Who?”

He searched my face as if waiting for me to recoil from him
with disgust and horror over all of this. But I’d been in training lately to
handle a lot of bizarre stuff. I could handle more. I was like a pack mule for
supernatural craziness now.

“My father,” he finally said.

I blinked with surprise. “Your father?”

He nodded slowly. “Just like your birth mother—my father was an
angel. That got me a chance when otherwise I know I would have been damned.”

“Your father was a—an
angel.
” Maybe
this pack mule’s back wasn’t as strong as I originally thought.

“Yeah. Let’s just say, my mother had widely differing tastes
when it came to men.” He shook his head, his expression shuttering as if he’d
realized he’d said far too much. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”

I needed more time, more information. But he’d put an end to
it. Quite honestly, I think this was the most I’d ever gotten out of him. While
mind-blowing, I considered it serious progress.

We caught up with Cassandra, and together we headed back to my
house. Once there, it felt very strange to have Bishop come in through the front
door. It seemed like such a mundane thing for someone like him to do.

Entrances through bedroom windows, however...

“I’m starving,” Cassandra said immediately. She hadn’t said
much on the way here, keeping quiet and looking pale. Now that her secret was
out, her real mission, I had no idea what was going on in her head. When I’d met
her eyes to try to find out more by reading her mind, I’d found that her walls
were up—solid and impenetrable.

She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Bishop and me
alone.

“Are we going to the party tonight?” I asked.

“No. The others have it under surveillance. We’ll go back to
Ambrosia and look for Stephen. Someone there has to know where he is.”

His gaze moved over everything in the foyer, from the throw
rug, to the coatrack, to the framed pictures of me and my mom.

“Pretty boring stuff,” I said, embarrassed by the level of
mundane he was able to witness in such a small space.

His attention moved to me. “Hardly. I find everything
here...very interesting.”

My face felt warm. His soul was hard to ignore right now, as
was my hunger, but I hoped I had a decent lock on it.

The calm before the storm,
I
thought.
Gets better before it gets worse.

Such a pessimist.

No, a
realist
. There was a big
difference.

“Earlier, you said that you didn’t want to let me out of your
sight,” I said cautiously.

He didn’t take his eyes off me for a moment. “That’s exactly
what I said.”

“There might be a slight problem with that plan.”

“What?”

I took my coat off and threw it on the coatrack like I’d done
hundreds of times before. “I need to take a shower.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Well, make it a fast one and I
won’t have to check on you.”

“Fastest ever.” I turned away from him before he could see me
blush and rushed up the stairs to the second floor.

Before I hopped in the shower I quickly checked voice mail.
There was a message from my mom about how much she was enjoying her vacation.
Another one from Kelly confirming the new location for Noah’s Halloween party
and how she hoped I’d be there, even though I’d been missing in action lately.
No calls from the school. I’d missed the better part of two days, but they
hadn’t checked up on me yet. For all they would have known I was sick at home.
It was a big relief.

When I hung up, I heard my bedroom door open, and I repressed a
smile.

“It’s only been five minutes. You’re already checking on me?” I
turned to the door, surprised to see Cassandra standing there, not Bishop.

“Are you all right?” I asked, concerned by how upset she
looked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean for any of this to
happen.”

I swallowed hard. “Care to be more specific? There’s a lot
happening.”

“With the angel I was sent to find. How much damage she’s
done—how many lives she’s destroyed after escaping the Hollow.”

“That’s not your fault,” I assured her.

“Feels like it is.”

I moved toward her and took her hands in mine and squeezed
them. “No, it’s not. It’s her—she’s disturbed. Really disturbed. And this—it’s
the only way she can cope. Can you think of any way we can help her without
having to kill somebody she possesses?”

“I keep trying to find another way. I don’t know.”

“Can we talk to her? Can we reason with her?”

“I hope so.” She blinked, her eyes glossy. “But I’m not just
upset about that. It’s...Roth, too.”

I watched her carefully. “What about him?”

“I can’t explain how I feel. Before, I—I could barely even
tolerate being in the same room as him. He annoyed me so much. And normally, I’m
very even tempered! I am praised for my calm and professional manner.
Always!”

“I’m sure you are,” I agreed without hesitation.

“He’s become a distraction. He’s the reason I haven’t been able
to concentrate on my real mission as much as I should.” Her forehead furrowed,
but then her expression relaxed a fraction. “What am I saying? Am I seriously
trying to blame him? It’s not his fault. But he’s...a great inconvenience to
me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh just a little. “Yeah, that’s usually
the way it is with boys—no matter who they are.”

Cassandra’s eyes snapped up to mine. “When he kissed me for the
first time last night I slapped him. Really hard. But all he did was laugh at me
before kissing me again. And
that
time...”

“That time you kissed him back,” I finished for her.

“He’s trying to make me look like a fool,” she whispered, her
expression agonized. “He doesn’t really like me.”

“Wrong. He does.” No reason to play games here. “I read his
mind. I saw that he’s confused—just as confused as you are—but there are real
emotions at stake here...for both of you. Nothing simple, nothing neat, but it
is real.”

This confirmation didn’t seem to make her happier; if anything,
her expression became only more miserable. “That’s even worse than I
thought.”

My chest grew tight and I hugged her. “Don’t worry. Nobody has
to know you’re breaking the balance rules with him. I swear I won’t tell anyone.
You’re safe.”