Everything I’d known had been a lie.
It was all too much.Too much.
Sidestepping Gabriel, I bolted out of the restroom, ignoring my name upon his lips, tinged with desperation as I ran out of the devil’s strip club as fast as my heels would carry me.
Outside, the rain stung my skin as I ran down Broadway, past Dick’s Burger Place, past the breweries, all the way down until I made it into a residential area with less traffic, fewer street lights. I collapsed onto the pavement, unable to move another inch. My chest heaved as I gasped for air and lifted my face toward the sky.
I tried to imagine The Silver City, what it might look like way up there. I had so many questions. Was Gabriel really only twenty-seven? Who were the people he’d lived with when we were young? Were they really his parents? Were they angels? Did he really love me?
Deep down, I knew the answer to that last one. It had been the source of his hesitation. Because he wasn’t supposed to love me the way he did. Which begged another question. Could these angels of Paradise really be all that good if they would so brutally punish him for loving me?
So what, all the years he’d spent protecting me, keeping me safe, giving me things, making me comfortable, all that went down the drain as soon as he put his cock in me?
That was bullshit.
“Well, look who it is. Little Sunshine, soaking wet, trembling in the dark with her guardian fuck boy nowhere in sight.”
The familiar voice clawed down my spine, filling me with ice. I looked up through my screen of sopping bangs to see thick boots only a few feet away from me. My gaze trailed up to see denim encased legs, a beefy broad chest in a leather jacket with thick biceps that strained against the material, and a face that I instantly recognized. My stomach curled, a sour taste budding on my tongue.
It was the biker who’d grabbed my ass outside of Siren’s. He was sporting a pretty gruesome black eye, making me wonder if it had been Gabriel to deal the blow or the bouncer Lucifer had called Abaddon.
“They tried to chase me away, but there was no way I was going to let a piece of Paradise get away from me.” Maybe he’d be considered handsome by some people, but any good looks he had were completely spoiled by the way he looked at me. It was a disgusting expression, full of dark promises.
With shaky limbs, I pulled myself up from the sidewalk and began to back away. “Leave me alone.” My voice was just as wobbly as my legs beneath me. I thought about the pepper spray in my backpack, but like an idiot, I’d left that behind in Gabriel’s car. Not that pepper spray could stop a wolf. Given my complicated relationship with gravity, running would be useless, even if I kicked off my heels. And it’s not like I was about to outrun a wolf. I’d been pretty certain that he was a shifter, mostly because I knew them to hang out in front of Siren’s. That and Gabe had said as much when he’d been resistant to letting me out of the car with them swarming around the club’s front entrance. But now, the guy was close enough that I could see the patch on his leather jacket. A wolf’s head, howling at the crescent moon. The Tacoma pack’s logo.
With every step I took to put distance between the man and me, he took another step closer.
He let out a dark cackle. “Now why would I leave a pretty little puss like you alone, out here in the cold? I can keep you warm.”
I gritted my teeth and held up my balled fists in front of me. “To Hell with you.”
His lips peeled back to reveal yellowed, crooked teeth. The scent of his mouth was so pungent, the rain did little to mask the stretch of plaque and tobacco that assaulted my nose.
“Of course I’m going to Hell, Sunshine. Eventually. All the more incentive to sample the Paradise between your legs. Or maybe I’ll just sell you to the highest bidder in my pack. How’s that sound, Sunshine? By the scent of you, you like being fucked with a supernatural cock, don’t you?”
There was no time to even open my mouth and scream. He moved so fast, his hand came around to grasp the back of my neck, squeezing me so hard that I felt myself collapse into his arms.
Then everything went black.
