Of course, to all outward appearances, she was simply mingling—just another well-dressed female among dozens of others. Mrs. Abernathy had beamed at her when she arrived. “Probably surprised I didn’t turn up in blood-soaked leathers,” she muttered into her champagne flute during a moment’s respite on the balcony.
“Would’ve worked for me.”
The smile that cracked her face was surely idiotic, but she didn’t turn. “Is it the leathers you like or the body in them?”
“You got me.” Warm breath against her nape, hands on her hips. “But I could get used to this dress.”
“Hey, eyes up.” She put the champagne flute on the waist-high wall that surrounded the balcony. “No scoping the cleavage.”
“Can’t help it.” He turned her with a stroking caress.
And the air rushed out of her.
“Oh, man.” She leaned back and twirled a finger.
Of course Deacon didn’t give her a fashion show. He flicked at her sideswept bangs instead. “I like it.”
“Ransom said it makes me look like I have raccoon eyes.”
“Ransom has hair like a girl.”
She grinned. “That’s what I said.” Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him with wild abandon, and it felt way beyond good. So she did it again. “The debutantes are going to wet their panties over you.”
He looked horrified.
“Don’t worry.” She pressed a kiss to his jaw. “I’ll scare them away.”
Deacon caused such a stir she thought they might have a Chanel No. 5–scented stampede in the ballroom. She also thought it’d make him turn and run. That he’d come . . . well, hell, it had stolen her heart right out of her chest. But she didn’t expect him to stand at her side with quiet focus, as if the attention didn’t even register.
A few of the men tried to use his presence to ignore her—male chauvinist pigs—but Deacon deflected the ball back at her so smoothly, the others never knew what hit them. Sexy, dangerous, smart, and he knew how to deal with dunderheads without making a scene. She was so keeping him. And stabbing a knife into the heart of any debutante/trophy-wife-wannabe who came within sniffing distance.
“I expect,” he whispered in her ear during a rare minute of privacy, “large amounts of sexual favors for being this good.”
Her lips twitched. “Done.”
And she was. Done over thoroughly.
By the time they reached the apartment, she was burning up for him. They didn’t make it to the bed the first time. Her pretty, slinky dress ended up in shreds at her feet as Deacon took her against the door, his mouth fused with hers. She came with a hard rush that had her clutching at his white dress shirt with desperate hands.
The second time was slower, sweeter.
Afterward, they lay side by side, face-to-face. It was an indescribably intimate way to be, and she hardly dared speak for fear of breaking the moment. “There goes your secret identity. As of tomorrow, you’re going to be in gossip columns from here to Timbuktu.”
He nipped at her upper lip. “I bought the tux.”
She blinked. “You bought the tux.” Bubbles of happiness burst into life inside her, rich and golden. “More cost-effective than renting one if you plan to use it a lot.”
“That’s what the guy at the store said.” Shifting closer, he stroked his hand over the sweep of her back, his skin a little rough and all perfect. “But . . .”
“No buts.” She kissed him. “I’m too happy right now.”
A smile against her lips. “This ‘but’ you have to deal with, Ms. Guild Director.” Light words. Serious tone.
She met his gaze. “What is it?”
“I have to resign as the Slayer.”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” As of tonight, he was too well-known, and more important, by staying with her, he’d get to know too many hunters . . . make too many friends. “We’ll find a replacem—”
“That’s what I was doing. I have a candidate for you.”
Nodding, Sara stroked her fingers over the square line of his jaw. “I can’t be your boss.” It was a solemn realization. “I need to be your lover.”
Deacon reached out to draw a circle around the spot where her necklace had rested before he’d taken it off. “I figured I’d go totally independent with the weapons.”
“That works.” The tightness in her chest eased. “Kind of seems one-sided, though. You’re giving up everything.”
“I get you.” A simple statement that meant more than she could ever articulate.
She swallowed the knot of emotion in her throat. “I talked to Tim a week ago.”
Deacon frowned. “Tim?”
“Lucy’s pregnant.”
The frown turned into a slow, spreading smile. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” She threw a leg over his and snuggled close. “He’s going to keep one of the pups for me. I was going to call it Deacon.”
He started laughing, and it was infectious. She buried her face in his neck and gave in.
The puppy was black as pitch, with big brown eyes and feet so big he promised to become a monster like his mom. Since it would’ve been a little confusing to have two Deacons in the house, they decided to call him Slayer.
Angel’s Wolf
1
Noel had been given a promotion in being assigned to the lush green state of Louisiana, but the position was a double- edged sword. Though the area was part of Raphael’s territory, the archangel had assigned the day–to–day ruling of it to Nimra, an angel who had lived six hundred years. Nowhere close to Raphael in age, but old enough— even if age alone was not the arbiter of power when it came to the immortal race.
Nimra had more strength in her fine bones than angels twice her age and had ruled this region for eighty years; she’d been considered a power when most of her peers were still working in the courts of their seniors. Hardly surprising when it was said that she had a will of iron and a capacity for cruelty untempered by mercy.
He was no fool. He knew this “promotion” was in truth a silent, cutting statement that he was no longer the man he’d once been— and no longer of use. His hand fisted. The torn and bloodied flesh, the broken bones, the glass that had been driven into his wounds by the servants of a crazed angel, it was all gone courtesy of his vampirism. The only things that remained were the nightmares… and the damage within.
Noel didn’t see the same man he always had when he looked in the mirror. He saw a victim, someone who had been beaten to a pulp and left to die. They’d taken his eyes, shattered his legs, crushed his fingers until the pieces were pebbles in a sack of flesh. The recovery process had been brutal, had taken every ounce of his will. But if this insulting position was to be his fate, it would’ve been better not to survive. Before the attack, he’d been on the short list for a senior position in the Tower from which Raphael ruled North America. Now he was a second- tier guard in one of the darkest of courts.
At its center stood Nimra.
Only five feet tall, she had the most delicate of builds. But the angel was no girlish- appearing waif. No, Nimra had curves that had probably led more than one man to his ruin. She also had skin the shade of melted toffee, a glowing complement to the luxuriant warmth of this region she called her own, and tumbling curls that gleamed blue- black against the dark jade of her gown. Those heavy curls cascaded down her back with a playfulness that suited neither her reputation nor the cold heart that had to beat beneath a chest that spoke of sin and seduction, her breasts ripe and almost too full for her frame.
Her eyes slammed into his at that moment, as if she’d sensed his scrutiny. Those eyes, a deep topaz painted with shimmering streaks of amber, were sharp and incisive. And right now, they were focused on him as she walked across the large room she used as her audience chamber, the only sounds the rustle of her wings, the soft caress of her gown against her skin.