When she scuttled off, I turned toward Jessica, my grin morphing from polite to diabolical. “I had thought about inviting them somewhere else. Someplace less seedy. Then I thought about it and realized that the whole point of this is to gain his trust. If I make a big show of tonight, flash my wealth with a fancy dinner at some random place I own, he’ll suspect I’m trying to trick him because he’ll think I’m going out of my way to sell him a different image of me. Which would be true. This place, on the other hand, is a perfect reflection of how he perceives me. The perverted king of debauchery.”
“But you are the perverted king of debauchery.”
“That’s true. And I want Gabriel to see that that alone doesn’t make me the villain.”
“Jess!”
The familiar face of Jessica’s friend Melanie pushed through the crowd of patrons and flung her arms around my girl. She wore a simple, low-cut black dress and just like she had the night she came here with Jess, she looked completely out of her element.
“Mel! Oh my God!”
I watched with quiet fascination as they squealed at each other like it had been a century since they’d seen one another rather than a single weekend.
“Jess, what the heck! You haven’t been answering any of your texts! Gabe and I have been so worried about you!” Melanie’s eyes darted in my direction, her cheeks burning up. She knew I could read minds, and her little head was buzzing like the static between radio stations with a million frantic thoughts all tangling together in one giant mess.
“It’s good to see you again, Ms. Gibson. I hear you have smoothed things out with your guardian and that Paradise has not reprimanded him for breaking the rules by sleeping with you. What a wonderful exception he’s been given.”
“Too bad Father doesn’t grant the same kind of forgivenessto his own children,” my beast groused.
I kept this little bit of internal grumbling to myself and simply passed her a polite smile.
“Um...yeah.” She was blushing so much, her cheeks were almost the color of Jessica’s dress. “You look freakingamazing, Jess. What’s happened to you the last couple of days?”
Melanie was a shy girl in comparison to her spitfire of a best friend. Plus, she was polite, so it wasn’t likely she’d come out and say what she was thinking. But why bother when I could hear it in her mind. She was wondering what I’d done to Jess. Gabriel had probably already poisoned her mind against me.
“Thanks, girl. But the dress weighs a million pounds. I’d give my left tit for some jeans and a t-shirt, but Mister Fancy Pants here likes his dates to have more sparkle than a Tiffany’s jewelry counter, I guess. Hey, where’s Gabe?”
Mel’s color went from red to ghost white. I narrowed my eyes on her, trying to pick apart the thoughts running through her head faster than the heart of a hummingbird. This made her even more nervous, knowing that I could read her mind.
“Oh dear,” I tutted. “It seems our guest obtained a key to the back door from Abaddon when he was here Friday night. Why does that not surprise me? What was his game? Hide behind the beer cases and leap out at me when my back was turned? That’s terribly uncreative for a celestial his rank.”
“N–no! It’s nothing like that. At least, I hope he had a better plan than that. I tried to talk him out of it, for what it’s worth.”
“Not much, I’m afraid, seeing as your efforts were fruitless.”
Jess swung a glare in my direction. “Lucifer.”
“Sorry,” I said with an agitated sigh, raking my fingers through my hair. “It’s just been a while since my brother has sent an assassin after me. It was due time for another attempt, of course. It’s just obnoxious that this time he’s sent one I can’t kill. How very boring.”
Candice approached with the cosmo, and I handed it to Jess while instructing the server to bring anything Mel wanted. “I was hoping we could tag team this and catch up our two love birds together, but it seems we’ll have to split up.”
Jess stretched up on her toes to plant a kiss on my cheek. “That doesn’t seem very fair. I get to catch up with my best friend over drinks, but you get stuck with the righteous celestial lurking in your storeroom with a sword made of fire.”
“I’m used to the short end of the stick, Kitten. In fact, I thrive upon it.”
22
Siren’s backroom was a sizable space that sat over the cellar, which I had fashioned into Limbo when I obtained the building. Its only purpose was as storage for all the most popular alcohol, so the staff didn’t feel compelled to venture to the land of lost souls every time they needed to fetch a case of watermelon flavored Smirnoff. It was damp, dark, and smelled faintly of sex for all the times the girls snuck a customer back here to screw.
But tonight, the air was ripe with the scent of celestial. It was a distinct stench that I associated with all stuck-up, goody-two-shoes. It reminded me of that overly fragrant scent commonly found in the restrooms of slightly higher-end department stores. “Blood and feathers, Gabriel. I need to introduce you to my friend, Tom Ford.” Taking a seat on a box of Jack Daniel’s, I took another sip of my whiskey and pretended to hold it up to examine the amber liquid. “He makes an appealing cologne that would cover up the unfortunate stench oflittle bitchyou seem to have going for you.”
I paused, waiting for him to make his presence known. When he didn’t, I rolled my eyes with a growl of a scoff.
“Oh, come on. You can’t be so stupid as to think you’re going to get the drop on me. Whatever you have planned, you won’t succeed, and I warn you, I have little patience for any celestial who dares come at me with that fucking sword. I’m only being polite because my mate cares for you a great deal. So count yourself lucky that her good tastes have seemed to lapse where you’re concerned.”
In a blink, he was standing at the center of the room. One second he hadn’t been there, and in the next, he appeared out of thin air. He was in his celestial form, naked from the waist up. His form was typical of a guardian, a muscular, holy machine of brawn. His white wings were stunning. Even tucked in, they filled much of the room. A lump formed in my throat at the sight of them. In his hand, he held the Flaming Sword of Justice. When Azraella had wielded it, she had to hold it with two hands, but Gabriel could hold it in one. He looked imposing as fuck as he brandished it. But all I could do was curl my lips in disgust as I took another drink.
“I fucking hate that thing.”
