Chapter Nine
Gabe
“There is no way in hellI’m taking youthere.”
“Fine,” Mel sniffed. “Then don’t. I’ll call an Uber.” She moved to get out of the car, but as she reached over the car’s console, I caught her wrist. She froze.
“What?”
“Melanie,” I said softly. “You can’t go there. It’s not safe for someone like you.”
“Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re special. You’re good. You burn bright, like a star, and that light attracts darkness. The kind of darkness that feral shifters and handsome devils dressed in tycoon suits love to get their hands on.”
Not only did I fear for her safety in a strip club full of demons run by the devil himself, but I most certainly didn’t trust it when most of his clientele were trashy pill pushers from the Tacoma pack.
“And how would you know what attracts shifters, Gabriel? Are you trying to tell meyou’rea wolf?”
“I’m not a wolf, Mel. I promise you that.”
By the way she looked at me, I knew she believed me. But she was a smart girl. She knew I was keeping something monumental from her. From her perspective, this was the first secret between us. Maybe she was realizing that secret stretched back further than she’d first thought, rooted deeply in our entire relationship.
So, of course, she was angry, and she had every right to be. I’d been dishonest and a prick for what I’d done tonight. Rebelling against my wishes and going to the very place I made her swear she’d never go was her way of punishing me.
If only she knew just what kind of danger lay inside that depraved church.
“Whatever you are, you’re an asshole. Either take me to Siren’s, or I’ll find my own way there.”
“Mel, I understand you’re upset. But this isn’t as simple as you going to a rowdy club, like Glow. The world of supernatural beings is a dark and dangerous one, and the Tacoma wolf pack is only the surface of it.”
She glared daggers at me, looking at me with a razor-sharp scrutiny that I could practically feel cutting into me in an attempt to spill out all my secrets.
“You don’t actually believe the devil owns Siren’s?”
“I do, Mel. In fact, I know it,” I admitted through a grimace. There were only so many things I could keep from her.
There were three commandments a guardian class celestial always had to abide by.
Keep your ward safe.
Keep your nature secret.
Don’t copulate with your ward.
I’d already broken one of those. I wasn’t allowed to tell her that I was a celestial shifter Heaven sent to protect her. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t tell her about other angels, especially fallen class angels.
“Oh please,” she said with a laugh, no humor in the sound. “And how do you know he’s the devil?”
“Because I know, alright? He’s a fallen angel, the king of them, in fact, and he’s dangerous. You and Jess need to stay away from him, the local shifters he serves, and the native demons he’s letting out of the portal in that old church he’s bought.”
Mel was now looking at me like I was crazy.
Itsoundedcrazy. But if there was a chance she’d listen to me and stay away from Siren’s, looking insane was a small price to pay.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but think about it. If men can shift into wolves, and tigers, and bears, is it so far fetched to think a man can have wings and own a strip club?”
“If he was actually the devil, wouldn’t it beallover the news? I mean, I know there are rumors, but wouldn’t pictures of his wings be plastered on the front page of every newspaper and all over the internet and on airplane advertisements?”
