FALLEN ANGEL
By
Marie Morin
Chapter One
“It's been two frigging years,” Kylee said angrily. “You mean to say you've got nothing? How could you have nothing?”
She could see that the detective sitting across from her was holding onto his patience only with a strenuous effort, but she didn't care. Snatching a drawer open, he hefted a file fully six inches thick from it and plopped it down on the top of his desk.
“We've got a whole lot of nothing,” he said tightly. “We've followed every lead, but we ran out of leads more than a year ago. So, unless you have something new…?”
Her stomach tightened as she stared at him, trying to gather up the nerve to put her plan into action.
She'd never considered herself a coward--still didn't. The plan that had slowly evolved in her mind wasn't the product of a sane person of bravery, but one insane with grief and the need for vengeance. But she was not so far off the deep end to feel no fear of something she had every reason to fear.
“I've--I decided to smoke him out. I'd like your help if you're willing to help me, but I'll do it anyway,” she said quickly before she lost her nerve.
Detective Strand gave her a patronizing look that made her long to slap him. “If you'll pardon me saying so, that would be plain out stupid. You'll only end up getting yourself killed.”
“You know it was her….” She stopped. She couldn't bring herself to say 'pimp', not about her baby sister. Drug dealer sounded almost as bad. The truth was the bastard had gotten her little sister hooked and used her and then killed her when she tried to get out because she knew too much about him. “…boyfriend that killed her,” she finished, feeling ill even to use that description, although it was less offensive to her sister's memory.
“Wethinkit was him, and that means exactly zero, because we haven't found anything to link him to the murder aside from the fact that he was her pimp. It could just as easily have been one of her johns.”
Kylee winced at the word pimp. How dare the bastard sit in judgment on poor Stacy! She hadn't been much more than kid, easy prey for the sonofabitch that had used her, but she could see it in his face. As far as he was concerned, Stacy was nothing but trash, a whore and a junky and undeserving of life--or his valuable time. White faced, Kylee got to her feet. “Well, how about I do your job for you? If I get a confession for you on tape, do you think you could put the bastard away? Or does it take more than two hands for you to find your ass?”
Detective Strand was beet red when he shoved his own chair back and surged to his feet. “I'm going topretendI didn't hear that,” he growled. “If you're so damned determined to go out and get yourself killed, I don't see how I can stop you, but if you do anything illegal, you're the one that's going to end up in jail,Ms.Griffin!”
“It's a hell of a lot safer to run in law abiding citizens, isn't it? Especially if it's a woman half your size!”
His eyes narrowed. “I put my life on the line every day,” he growled, “not that people like you appreciate it.”
“It's yourjob, Detective! If you didn't like the job description, you shouldn't have taken the job to start with. I don'thaveto appreciate your half ass service. I pay the taxes that support you! The biggest problem I see with that is that I don't have anything to do with hiring and firing. I just get to pay taxes through the nose and listen to excuses whenever I actually need you!” Grabbing her purse up, Kylee stalked from his office before he could fall dead in a fit of suppressed rage.
She was still so furious when she left the precinct that she merely stood on the sidewalk for a time, staring at nothing in particular while people walked by her, jostling her. Finally, she moved to the curb and hailed a taxi to take her back to the room she was renting.
She hated the city. There were too many people, too many cars, and too many opportunities for corrupt and/or incompetent cops and outright criminals.
She was still seething when she reached the shabby room she'd rented. She was also terrified. All she really wanted to do was to tuck her tail between her legs and high tail it back for home where she could feel safe and untainted.
She was hardly a saint, but the filthy things that happened in the dark corners of the city made her feel unclean just from proximity.
She couldn't just go home knowing the bastard that had butchered her little sister was still going about life as usual, making money off of the bright eyed young girls that flocked to the city for adventure and ended up as carcasses on a slab in the morgue, picked clean, sucked dry.
She'd spent a solid year hoping to hear he'd been caught, hoping to hear he'd been found dead--anything that would make her feel that justice had caught up with him and he wasn't able to prey on anybody else's little sister.
She was never going to be able to put this behind her as long as she had the mental picture of his grinning face next to her sister's cold, dead one.
She didn't want to die, though, and she had very little confidence that she could carry out her scheme. She wasn't street smart. She'd seen plenty of violence, even in the small city where she lived, but although she'd been a 'wild' teenager she hadn't dealt with the drug scene and certainly not prostitution. She hadn't rubbed elbows with users, or dealers, or women that had been forced to make their living in such a way.
She was going to stick out like a--victim just waiting to be pounced on. She might as well strap a sign to her ass.
After taking a hot shower to try to calm her frayed nerves, she lay down on the bed, hoping she could force mind and body to rest. If she was going to be out half the night, she needed to have her wits about her.
* * * *
Kylee had spent nearly a year training in self-defense. She had a bottle of pepper spray in one pocket and a tape recorder in her bra and she still felt naked, completely defenseless, and scared totally shitless as she made her way down the dimly lit streets where her sister had lived and died.
How could Stacy, five feet nothing and, maybe, ninety pounds soaking wet have gotten up the nerve to come to such a dangerous place to start with? How could she havelivedhere, she wondered? Were drugs that powerful? Did they distort reality that much? Even if they did, Stacy would have had to have been bombed out of her mind all the time not to notice how dangerous the area was even for a two hundred pound gorilla, much less a speck like Stacy.
Knots of hookers waited on just about every corner. They gave her suspicious, aggressive glances whenever she passed them. Derelicts dotted the landscape, swigging from bottles, lying in the gutters, squatted behind the dubious concealment of trash dumpsters that over flowed everywhere, or staggering along the sidewalk. 'Pimp mobiles' passed along the street at intervals, creeping along so that the 'ladies' could get a good look at them and stay on their toes.
She was almost relieved when she saw the sign she'd been looking for, the bar slash pool hall where Enrico, Stacy's former boyfriend, was known to hang out. Girding herself, without waiting to think it over, she grabbed the door handle and stepped inside.
Her lungs seemed to collapse in her chest like deflated balloons. Her heart put on brakes.
There were probably two dozen of the lowest looking low lifes she'd ever seen hovering around the pool tables, slouched in bench seats in front of rickety tables, and standing along the walls. A few of them glanced toward the door when it opened and did a double take.
Kylee ignored them, raking her gaze over the assemblage in a desperate attempt to see if she could identify Stacy's killer.
One of the guys that had glanced her way elbowed a man standing in the shadows. The guy looked up, took a step forward.
Kylee's heart slammed into her chest wall as it surged to life again.
Whatever doubts she'd entertained that she would recognize him vanished.
Whatever doubts she'd had that he would instantly know she was Stacy's sister disappeared, as well.
He looked like he'd seen a ghost.
It was all she'd come to do.
Stepping from the bar, she walked as briskly as her shaky legs would allow in the direction from which she'd come, resisting the temptation to break into a run. She had just reached the first intersection when she heard a shout behind her.
Glancing back, she saw that Enrico had barreled out the door of the bar. Kicking her heels off, Kylee sprinted down the next block. She'd left the rental car on the street at the next intersection. “Please, God! Don't let it be stripped down to a shell before I can get to it!” she muttered under her breath, dodging a man that tried to block her path. He caught her anyway, swinging her around. She dug for the pepper spray and filled his face full.
Screaming, he released her to rub his eyes and she leapt away, her feet pounding against the pavement in time to her heart beat. She slowed enough to dig for her keys when she saw the car. She could tell from the sounds behind her, though, that Enrico was gaining on her.
Reaching the car, she shoved the key in the hole after scraping paint off the door all the way around the hole. Diving inside, she slammed the lock down and shoved the key into the ignition. Luck was with her. The engine turned over at the first try.
Someone grabbed the door handle, wrenching on it. Kylee turned to see Enrico glaring at her through the window. “I know what you did and I'm going to see you fry for it!” she screamed at him, flicking him a bird.
It was probably one of the more ill advised impulses she'd had, and given in to.
He slammed his hand against the window so hard she was surprised it didn't shatter. Screaming, she jerked the car in gear and stepped on the gas just as he slammed his fist against the window again. That time the glass did shatter and he grabbed a fist full of her shirt, tearing it half off of her as the car's momentum yanked him off balance. He rolled away from the wheels as she jerked the car into the street, narrowly missing another car.
She ran the red light at the next intersection, almost hitting a second car as she glanced in her rearview mirror to check on Enrico. To her horror, she saw him leap to his feet, run around to the driver's side of the car and yank the driver out.
“Oh shit!”
She turned at the next intersection, whipping the wheel around the corner at the last minute. The car fishtailed. She fought for control and managed to get the car straightened out. When she got to the next corner, she turned again, glancing in the mirror to see if the car Enrico was now driving had managed to make the turn. The sound of grinding metal reached her as he sideswiped a parked car.
She didn't wait to see if he made the next turn, zigzagging through the city in an attempt to lose him. Driven by sheer terror, it was a while before she realized that she was moving deeper and deeper into no man's land.
She found herself in a 'ghost' town, an area of the city that contained nothing but run down, or falling down, buildings. About the time she realized she hadn't seen a soul in several blocks the car Enrico was driving barreled out of an alley, slamming into the rear of her car and sending it spinning completely out of control.
Chapter Two
Fortunately for Kylee, the car's momentum had slowed considerably before the car struck the pile of debris that finally brought the spinning to a stop. She hadn't had the chance to fasten her seatbelt. The abrupt stop slammed her down on the seat hard enough it stunned her for many moments.
By the time she'd recovered enough to begin trying to struggle upright, Enrico was already reaching through her window to unlock her door. In a state of shock, completely disoriented, Kylee was dragged from the car like a rubber doll, unable even to find her voice to scream. He lifted her from the ground by her throat.
Instinct kicked in when her air was cut off by his grip and her own weight, and Kylee began clawing at the hand holding her.
“You listen good,Putta. You mess with Enrico, he cut your pretty throat like yourPuttasister. You got that?”
Not on the fucking recorder, Kylee thought dimly as darkness circled her like vultures, realizing she hadn't had enough presence of mind to turn it on.
He shook her when she didn't answer, though how he thought she could with the grip he had on her throat she couldn't imagine.
Close by, an explosion of sound, like something huge hitting the roof of one of the buildings surrounding the alley, made him jerk in reaction. Dropping her to the ground, he whirled around sharply, his head tilted toward the roofs as he searched for any sign of a threat. Gasping like an asthmatic, Kylee fought to drag air into her lungs and get to her feet at the same time.
A clanging from somewhere nearby, like someone banging on a metal pipe, echoed hollowly through the alley. A duller pounding, like running feet, accentuated the frantic clanging.
“What the fuck is that?” Enrico demanded, sounding further enraged that anyone would dare interrupt his assault and battery.
Kylee didn't answer. She didn't figure he was expecting one. Instead, she struggled to reach the tiny recorder to switch it on. The impact had shifted it from the middle of her bra to the outside of the left cup. “The cops know you killed my sister. Iknow you killed my sister,” Kylee managed finally.
Enrico barely glanced at her. He was too busy tracking the sounds above them that continued unabated. “Yeah? Well, I tell you the same ting I tole de cops, prove it,Putta.”
“I've got your DNA under my fingernails and all over the fucking car!” Kylee screamed at him. “If it matches the DNA they found on her ….”
He grabbed her by the throat again, cutting her off mid-sentence. Before he could choke the life out of her, something landed on the hood of the car so hard the car bounced. Enrico's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. “Madre de dios!”
Releasing her abruptly, he tore off toward the car he'd left running, leapt into the front seat and peeled off.
Feeling the hair on the back of her neck standing on end, Kylee, on the ground once more, turned to see what had scared the thug off. Two--something'swere struggling on the hood of the car. As she gaped, the one on top, almost as if he sensed her gaze, lifted his head and looked straight at her. His face was contorted into a mask of rage. His eyes glowed an eerie iridescent green--almost like the eyes of a nocturnal animal.
In spite of the strange eyes, he looked just like a man--except for the great wings sprouting from his back.
The distraction cost him. The man--creature--beneath him, clubbed him on the side of his head with his fist. The one on top tumbled from the hood of the car, taking the other creature with him. Abruptly, they broke apart and shot skyward, disappearing into the darkness of the night sky.
From high above her, Kylee heard the clanging again. It stopped suddenly. A strange whistling noise followed.
Frowning, Kylee stared up at the sky, wondering what the hell it was. Slowly, she got to her feet, moving toward the front of her car to look at the crushed hood. An object struck the ground beside the car, little more than a foot from where she'd been sitting only moments before. She leaned around the hood to look. A broad bladed sword lay in the dirt and gravel next to the front wheel.
Sirens screamed with a suddenness that made her jerk all over. Flashing blue, white, and red lights rounded the corner of the alley before the vehicles did. Without quite knowing why, Kylee moved around the car and pushed the sword under the edge out of sight just as the two police vehicles slid to a stop roughly a car length from hers.
Detective Strand disgorged from the unmarked car, surveying her and the car with an expression of disgust. As he shut his door, two more patrol cars pulled in behind the first two. Catching the eyes of the drivers, he made a circular motion in the air. The two cars backed up and shot off in the direction Enrico had disappeared.
The two cops riding in the patrol car got out and followed Detective Strand, waving their flashlights along the ground and studying the interesting donut Kylee had cut with rubber into the pavement.
“Satisfied?” Detective Strand commented as he reached her.
“Actually, yes,” Kylee said, dragging the recorder out of her bra and handing it to him.
He played it back, frowning. “That's not a confession,” he said dryly, handing the device back to her when he'd listened.
Dismay filled Kylee. “He confessed to me just before that. He said he would cut my throat like he had--my sister's,” Kylee finished, struggling against the wobble in her chin.
“He said, she said. Granted you're a lot more credible witness, but the DA ain't going to go for it, I can tell you that. It's too weak.”
“What about DNA? His DNA is all over the car and under my nails.”
He gave her a look. “Even if it matches what we found on her, it won't prove anything. He was her pimp and her lover. She wasn't raped, Ms. Griffin. The sex was consensual and any lawyer would shoot down DNA evidence on that alone,” he said almost kindly.
He moved closer and looked her over. “We can file assault and battery charges on him.”
“How long would he be in jail?”
He shrugged. “A while. Several years anyway.”
Kylee fought the urge to burst into tears again. “My sister was only eighteen! He deprived her of the rest of her life.”
“You can get him off the streets for a little while, anyway.”
She didn't want him off the streets for a little while. She wanted him off permanently.
The detective frowned when she said nothing, glancing toward the hood of the car. After a moment, he moved around her to study it better. Feeling weak kneed, Kylee moved around the car door, which was still standing open and collapsed in the seat.
“This happen when he slammed into you?”
Kylee put her head in her hands. She hadn't had the chance to assimilate what she'd seen. She still didn't knowwhatshe'd seen, but she wasn't so shook up that she didn't know better than to say anything about it. The cops would think she'd gone off the deep end.
“I don't know. Everything happened so fast.”
And then the sword dropped out of the sky. Her heart accelerated at that thought. It was proof--but of what? The rest of the story didn't sound any better in her mind. When she glanced toward the other cops and saw they'd moved off, she leaned over, grabbed the sword from beneath the car and very carefully slipped it under the car seat.
Detective Strand was looking at her when she looked up again. She stared back at him guiltily. “What's this blue stuff?”
Relieved that he hadn't noticed what she'd been doing, Kylee lifted up slightly. She still couldn't see what he was talking about, though, and got up, moving around to the front of the car. The detective had dabbed a finger in the blue liquid smeared all over the hood of the car. He sniffed it, shook his head, rubbed it between two fingers. “It ain't paint.”
It didn't look like blood either, at least not of the human variety, but the image of the two creatures struggling on top of the car instantly filled her mind--along with the pounding on the roof of the building, the clanging of metal, the sword falling out of the sky. The man/creature on bottom had had a sword clutched in his fist, she remembered, the fist he'd slammed into his opponent's head.
Blood, she realized, feeling shock go through her again, a coldness. She shivered, glancing up at the buildings that surrounded them.
The sound of an approaching vehicle caught her attention and she turned to see an ambulance pulling up. Detective Strand moved around the car. “Here, let's get you checked out. When they're done with you at the hospital, I'll need to get a statement from you.”
Kylee didn't try to argue. The shock had begun wearing off and the pain level was rising. She didn't think there was anything wrong with her aside from bruising, but that was enough to make her hurt all over.
A wrecker arrived to tow the car as she was helped into the ambulance and consternation filled her. Realizing there was nothing she could do about the situation at the moment, she tried to put it from her mind. The techs helped, poking and prodding as they checked her vitals. They made her lie down on the gurney, strapping her in for the trip to the hospital. She didn't protest about that either, but she felt absurd. She wasn't hurt--not really.
She was cold though, bone deep. They covered her with blankets and kept checking her blood pressure.
They wanted her to stay overnight at the hospital. She refused. An officer drove her back to her room and parked outside. Enrico had slipped through their fingers.
Kylee thought it highly doubtful that he could've found out where she was staying but she said nothing, dragging herself inside, checking the room and then collapsing gratefully on the hard lumpy mattress. The pain medication they'd given her worked like a charm. Inside of thirty minutes she was out like a light and didn't dream once, at least none that she could remember.
* * * *
Gabriel stared down at the sleeping woman with a mixture of curiosity and irritation. She'd taken his sword. He had no idea why, but she'd hidden it from him. He'd searched the room while she slept and found nothing.
He needed to get it back. Otherwise, he was going to be trying to defend himself with nothing more than his bare hands the next time he encountered the Marceenaian scum he'd fought earlier.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. Steadying himself, he looked down at his side, frowning at the gashes along his torso and thigh. They were still bleeding sluggishly and surprise flickered through him. The wounds must be deeper than he'd thought or they would have closed by now.
He had not shifted, even though it was unlawful that Elumi walk among the humans in any form that set them apart from them. He'd needed his wings to follow the woman. He knew the sword must have landed close to where he and his enemy had landed on her vehicle, because they'd no more than engaged again when his sword had been knocked from his grip. When the humans had finally cleared out, however, giving him the chance to look for his blade, it had been gone.
She was the only one there when he'd lost it. It only stood to reason that she would've been the one who had taken it.
He still couldn't figure outwhyshe'd taken it. His sword carried the heraldry of his house and his overlord, but she was human, not Elumi. She could have no interest in their war, would not have any reason to consider him an enemy.
Darkness began to crowd close to his vision as he stood staring down at her, wondering how he was to retrieve the weapon when he was forbidden direct contact with humans, the females in particular since they presented a danger to the Elumi male that human males didn't. For a moment, Gabriel thought it was a trick of the light. Finally, he realized with more than a touch of amazement that his injuries had weakened him far more than he'd thought possible.
Concentrating, he tried belatedly to shift. The effort availed him nothing at all in his weakened state, but it cost him. Darkness came down over him like a thick curtain. His last awareness of anything at all was astonishment as he felt himself drifting downward.
* * * *
Kylee was wrenched from deep sleep by the blow. Instinct fought the drug in her system and she jerked upright, tensed to fight for her life. The arm that had knocked the breath out of her didn't so much as twitch, however. With the immediate threat past, the pain killer asserted dominance again, making her head swim dizzily. Her thoughts ebbed and flowed in a totally disjointed way that made it hard to put them together into a comprehensible evaluation.
Wings, she thought, looking down at the back presented to her, folded and tucked against his length. Feathered wings, pale white/gold at the tips, growing gradually darker until they were almost amber at the root--quill? A twenty foot wing span at the very least. Big bird. Huge--but there was the arm.
Catching hold of the hand, she lifted the arm with an effort. It was dead weight and heavily muscled from forearm to bicep. Golden skin, slightly paler golden hair sprinkling the top side of the arm, but it was definitely a man's arm. Angel, she wondered a little dazedly?
She shook that off, realizing it was absurd.
She shifted since the arm wasn't pinning her to the bed anymore and looked down at the head that had creamed her shoulder when he fell on her. Long wavy hair that was somewhere between light brown and golden blond covered the face.
Her arm began to ache from holding the 'log'. Anyway, she was supporting herself with one arm. She dropped the arm she was holding so that she could brush the hair out of his face. It landed bruisingly on one hip and slid off.
Gathering the hair with her fingers, she pulled it back and tucked it behind his ear. Nothing strange about the ear. The face sparked a memory. She frowned in concentration, trying to figure out why it looked familiar--but didn't.
Her heart executed a series of painful little skips when an image flashed in her mind--two winged man-like creatures trying to choke the life out of each other on the hood of her car.
She could only see half his face, and it wasn't contorted with effort and rage now.
He opened his eye.
She jumped, drawing away.
Groaning, he struggled for several moments and finally managed to roll over.
Despite her wariness, her gaze automatically skimmed his body.
The same blue substance they'd found on the hood of her car was smeared all over his torso and seeped from a deep gash in his side. Her stomach clenched in sympathetic pain at the sight of his wound. “Oh, God! It is--was--is blood.”
Panic subverted the drug high again, although her head swam a little sickeningly as she glanced around the room seeking--she had no idea. Help?
The scan of the room diverted her for several moments. Shewasin her room. The door was still closed. She could see that the security chain was undisturbed and the window seemed to be intact. There was no broken glass beneath it.
Dismissing the puzzle of just how he'd gotten in for the moment, she struggled to get off the bed. He caught her wrist in a surprisingly powerful hold. She looked down at him. “It's alright,” she said, prying his fingers loose from her wrist with the infinite patience of the mentally impaired, for, the moment she managed to pull one loose and reach for the next, he closed the first around her wrist again. “I just need to find something.” She frowned, giving up the effort to free herself and glancing at the gash again. “You need a hospital.”
“No.”
His voice was deep. The notes reverberated through her in a pleasing way that completely distracted her from the meaning of the word for several moments. She frowned doubtfully. “You're sure? It looks bad to me.”
“I need my weapon.”
Kylee's confusion deepened. “Weapon?”
“Sword.”
Her eyes narrowed as she thought that over. “It's in the car,” she produced finally, settling back on her pillow and yawning.
“Where is the car?”
She puzzled over it with her eyes closed since it was too much effort to open them, but no amount of prodding produced the information he'd asked for. “Sorry. The pain killer they gave me is kicking my ass. Ask me tomorrow,” she mumbled, reaching blindly for his arm to give him a reassuring pat. “I'll figure it out tomorrow.”
Chapter Three
Kylee swam toward consciousness reluctantly. She'd been having one ofthemost bizarre dreams, but she couldn't quite remember what it was about.
Bird feathers, she finally realized.
Thatwasweird.
Why would she be dreaming about feathers?
She opened her eyes finally, unable to either grasp the elusive dream or drift back into sleep and found herself staring at the bedside table.
The lamp was still on. She must have really been out of it by the time she'd made it back to her room. Shuddering as memories of the night before crashed in on her, she moved slowly and carefully to sit up. Her throat hurt.
Pushing up from the bed, she amended that. Her whole body hurt.
Staggering a little from the after effects of not enough sleep and too much pain killer, she winded her way to the mirror for a look at her boo-boos. Just as she'd suspected, Enrico had left an imprint of his hand on her throat. She pulled her blouse up, turning to study the bruising that wound around her waist to her back--probably from the crash.
She was lucky she'd only gotten bruises.
She froze as she faced the room again.
There was a man sprawled in her bed!
Good God! How had she gotten back to her room with a man?
Frowning, completely forgetting her aches and pains, she moved a few steps closer, peering down at him. She'd thought the bed sheets were draped across his waist. She realized on closer inspection that it was some kind of wrap.
She caught a glimpse of wing then. The sight touched off a horrendous avalanche of memories.
She hadn't seen him and thendreamedhe was in her bed. Hewasin her bed.
Except for the wings, he looked as human as--well alotbetter than most of the men she knew. In fact, now that she could see him really well, with a clear head, he was downright--beautiful.
He couldn't be human, though, not with those wings.
Alien?
She wasn't going for the angel thing. She didn't believe in all that supernatural stuff. Most of it was scientifically explainable, or a trick.
She studied his face for a long time, partly from pure admiration and partly because she wanted to reassure herself that he was unconscious--not dead. Seeing no sign that he was feigning sleep, she allowed her gaze to drift downward. His chest was moving slowly and evenly.
There was no gash along his side, and very little of the 'blue blood', dried or otherwise. Most of that was on the bed sheets. There was a long angry red line, however, that ran from just beneath his left pec downward in a curved line that met the waist of the thing he was wearing. It looked like a very recently healed wound. He had another, somewhat shorter wound along one thigh, barely visible through the torn fabric but noticeable because the fabric around it was stained just as the sheets were.
She stared at the sarong-like thing around his waist, wondering if he looked as humanthereas the rest of him did. After glancing at his face again to make certain he was still asleep, or unconscious, she took a step closer and caught the edge of the wrap, lifting it very carefully for a peek. There was definitely something there. She couldn't quite make it out, though. Leaning a little closer, she lifted the cloth just a tiny bit higher for a better look.
He moved.Itmoved, standing up to look at her with one dark eye like a serpent that had been disturbed.
Dropping the cloth as if she'd been burned, she jerked upright.
His eyes were not only open, he'd propped his arms behind his head.
His expression was unreadable, but she had the feeling somewhere in his mind was the question--See anything you like?
Her face grew hot.
“I was--uh--just checking the wound on your thigh.”
His brows rose. He didn't comment on the outright lie--the very obvious lie. His leg hadn't been anywhere near where she'd been looking--unless one counted that middle leg, which had looked way too lively to be wounded.
He sat up abruptly, threw his legs off the bed and stood. “I am curious also,” he murmured, walking right up to her and taking hold of her blouse. He had her shirt unbuttoned to the waist before she recovered enough from her shock to slap his hands.
His brows rose, but he removed his hands, folding his arms over his chest “You prefer to remove it yourself?”
“I donot!” Kylee gasped, outraged. “I'm not just going to--to strip because you're curious.”
He dropped his arms to his sides and walked around her, looking her over curiously. “I've not had the opportunity to observe a human woman so closely before. You appear much the same, though, as the Elumi women--you have not their abilities, their strength, or their skills, but physically you seem not so different--except smaller, much smaller.”
Kylee turned with him, fairly certain she didn't want him behind her where she couldn't watch him. She ignored the insulting comparison. If he thought for one minute that that kind of comment was going to put her on her metal to prove herself, he was wrong. It just irritated her.
“There are superstitions about mortal women that I find intrigue me. I myself am not superstitious, but many believe these tales and I have wondered how such strange beliefs might have come about.”
She should have felt far more threatened by the strange being than she was intrigued, but the reverse was true. She wondered if that was because of some primal sense that told her he was no real threat to her, or if it was her own latent superstitions about angels and the fact that he looked so much like the concept of goodness and purity.
She didn't really believe in such fairy tales on an intellectual level, but she supposed on a more primitive level she didn't disbelieve either. Rather like disputing the existence of ghosts in the daylight, but fearing the cemetery at night.
It didn't hurt that he was the next thing to naked, looked more human than not, and he was magnificent in every way--tall, blond, well proportioned, muscular, and intimidatingly handsome.
“What tales?” she prompted when he didn't finish.
He moved surprisingly fast. One moment he was merely standing before her, studying her. The next he had her pinned against his length, one arm around her body, the other clutching the back of her head. “An Elumi finding himself too weakened to heal swiftly, may draw strength from the energy a mortal woman yields in the throes of passion.”
Stunned, both by the remark and his assault, Kylee could only blink at him blankly while her mind spun its wheels ineffectually.
“It is said that this can not be done, however, without the Elumi male becoming enslaved by the pleasure he finds in the woman's flesh. It is forbidden for this reason.
“I, myself, can not conceive of it. You are--tempting, though. And I am weakened by my wounds.”
Those comments only succeeded in producing more disjointed and fractured thoughts, but rather like speed reading, key words stood out and were assimilated. He wanted sex, passion. She'd never seriously considered having sex only to try it, especially not with a stranger, a no strings, never meet again, no pretense of a relationship animal coupling.
She was a little startled to discover how much that appealed to her at the moment.
His lips were warm as they brushed experimentally along hers, more as if he were testing his interest than her resistance. When he had explored the feel of surface to surface, he caught her lips gently between his, sucking lightly first the upper and then the lower tender flesh. Heated desire instantly tautened every muscle in her body and brought every nerve ending tingling to life. Enthralled that so tame a kiss could awaken her so thoroughly, Kylee held perfectly still, waiting, expectant, holding her breath unconsciously.
He exhaled a harsh breath, his lips parting from hers fractionally. As if that had prodded her own memory of the need to breathe, Kylee released a shuddering breath, as well, dragging in the scent and taste of their mingled breaths as she inhaled deeply once more. The merging scents sent a chemical rush through her that shut down any ability to think with her rational mind. Guided solely by instincts, her hunger thoroughly roused, she bridged the slight distance that separated them, pressing her lips to his in offering and then nibbling provocatively at his lips when he didn't immediately accept.
A harder rush of anticipation and excitement filled her as he opened his mouth over hers almost crushingly, plunging his tongue into her mouth with ravening hunger, as if he'd been holding back only with an effort and she had broken the dam of his resistance.
Her head swam dizzily as she found herself twisting, falling, colliding jarringly with the mattress. Briefly, their lips parted as they landed on the bed but even as she began to float upward toward greater awareness, he sought her lips again and he kissed her more feverishly than before as he sank against her, supporting part of his weight with one arm as he sprawled half atop her.
A new level of tension and expectation invaded her at the ferocity of his kiss, the feverish need communicated by his restless quest to familiarize himself with her body by touch. His palm glided over her bare midriff, cupped one breast, massaging it through her bra, then moved downward to tug at the waistband of her trousers. The pressure eased as he probed the intricacy of the closure and surpassed it, brushing his hand along her stomach and spearing his fingers through the thatch of hair on her mound.
Her belly quivered at his touch. Warmth and moisture burgeoned within her passage as he eased his fingers lower, delving into her cleft, finding the little bud that sent keen jolts of need through her.
After only a moment, he withdrew his hand. Hooking his thumb in her trousers, he peeled both trousers and panties from her hips and down her thighs. Abandoning that pursuit when he gained the limit of his reach, he deserted her lips for the tender skin of her throat, his heated breath and lips sending shivers of delight through her as he moved lower until he was nibbling at the edges of her breasts. Lifting one hand, he pushed her blouse and bra strap from her shoulder, scooping one breast from its cup and covering the tip with his mouth.
Kylee sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the heat of his mouth close around her engorged nipple and shards of pleasure sliced through her, making every muscle in her body go taut.
Reaching down, he pushed her clothing from her thighs to her knees. Anxious to feel his skin against her own, Kylee wiggled free of the restriction. He slid a hair roughened knee between her thighs. She widened them, offering him access to her body, wanting him to touch her as he had before.
Transferring his attention from one breast to the other, he pushed her shirt and bra strap from her other shoulder, pushing the cup beneath her breast and capturing the peak lightly between his teeth as he ran his palm downward, over her belly and settled his hand between her thighs.
Fettered by the restricting fabric of her blouse and bra, Kylee clutched at him as he delved into her cleft, digging her fingers into the flesh of his upper arm and arching upward as he teased her clit with his finger. Her belly clenched spasmodically with the acuteness of the shock wave of sensation that went through her. She dragged in a shuddering breath, panting as wave after wave rolled over her until she was so taut with need she felt like a mindless mass of raw nerve endings.
“Please,” she gasped desperately.
He lifted his head from her breast, nuzzling her neck as he settled between her thighs. “Gabriel,” he murmured, his voice harsh with need as he probed her body, entered her slowly and paused. “Say it.”
With an effort, Kylee unclenched her eyelids to look up at him. His face was taut, fierce with need and his struggle to control it. His wings were arched behind the golden halo of his long, flowing hair, dispelling any illusion of a coupling between an ordinary man and a woman. If anything the exotic aspect only made her heart pound harder with excitement. Her fingers tightened on his hard, bulging biceps. “Gabriel, please.”
As if he'd merely been waiting for her to acknowledge him, to refute any possibility that she was holding the image of another in her mind, he claimed her completely in a series of thrusting sorties that plowed past clinging, resistant flesh until he'd sunk his engorged member to her depths. He hesitated then for many moments, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his muscles trembling from tension. Sucking in a harsh breath, he caught her wrists, manacling them to the bed on either side of her head as he began to move rhythmically after a long struggle for mastery, as if he could no longer contain his need, as if his control had slipped beyond his grasp.
Wild jolts of exquisite sensation surged through her with each stroke and Kylee clenched her eyes to focus on the pleasurable tension that wound inside her. Digging her heels into the mattress, she rose to meet his driving thrusts, feeling the rise of pleasure magnified by the shift in position, feeling it intensify so rapidly that her struggles to catch her breath became sharp cries of need.
He began to shudder with his own imminent release. His rapid ascent to his pinnacle touched off an answering demand within her own body, bumping her up the scale until her body could contain the tension no more, culminating in a shattering eruption of bliss that made her cry out with the sharpness of it. Uttering a harsh growl of sound, he followed her over the edge, shaking with the force of it and finally sinking heavily against her as if the explosion had drained him of every ounce of strength he possessed.
Kylee dragged in a deep, shuddering breath, feeling perfectly limp with repletion. His weight crushed down upon her, even though he still supported some of the weight of his upper chest on his elbows. She found it surprisingly welcome for all that, relished the illusion of a lover's intimacy, of being held tightly, possessively.
She had never experienced passion that had even come close to what she'd just felt. She wondered lazily if it would be like that again, or if it was only the circumstances surrounding the situation that had intensified it beyond anything she'd ever known.
She thought very likely that that was it.
She'd nearly been killed the night before. The need to reaffirm that life would go on as before had no doubt contributed to the explosive nature of her release--residual fear and tension from the night's events sharpening the pleasure to a keen blade that had sliced through all other considerations--such as the fact that he was totally alien and unknown to her.
He roused slightly and began to nuzzle against her neck. “There is a man who claims you as his woman, Kylee?”
Surprise flickered through her and then amusement and irritation.
“Women do notbelongto men here. If a man and woman care enough about each other to stay together, they belong to each other.”
He nipped at her neck with the edge of his teeth. “But there is no man?”
“If there were, I wouldn't be here.”
“Good. Then I will not have to kill one to claim you,” he murmured, covering her mouth in a deep kiss before she could respond to that remark. She dismissed it as she felt him grow hard inside of her again.
He made love to her more slowly, building the tension lazily until it became a great conflagration no less intense than the feverish need he'd built in her before. In fact, as impossible as she would have thought it to so quickly and easily build a fire among the embers, he did so, and built it hotter than before.
Her second release was so powerful she was not only left weak in the aftermath, but drained of even the will to struggle to hang on to consciousness. She drifted off to never land wrapped in a fuzzy cocoon of expended bliss.
Gabriel was pacing the room when she awoke. As if he sensed her gaze on him, he turned and strode toward her. “I have dire need of my sword.”
Still disoriented from sleep, it took Kylee a minute to make any sense of his remark. As memory flooded back, embarrassment joined it. She looked down at herself, more than half hoping she'd dreamed the earlier events. No such luck. She was naked from the waist down. Her bra was still under her armpits, her blouse open and a crumpled mess, and the stickiness between her thighs left her in no doubt he'd made a deposit.
Good God! She hadn't even had the presence of mind to use protection?
She didn't especially want to think about that right now, particularly since he was looking her over like he was considering dessert. Grabbing a handful of sheet, she pulled it across her lap and then quickly adjusted her bra.
Something flickered in his eyes, but he seemed to dismiss it. “The sword?”
Kylee frowned thoughtfully. “Oh!” She looked at him guiltily. “I put it under the front seat of the car.”
Anger and frustration flickered across his features. “The vehicle you were in last night? It is not here.”
“Uh--that's because it was towed to the police impound lot.”
Chapter Four
Detective Strand glared at the lab tech in irritation, wondering if he was on something. “Too much caffeine?” he asked suspiciously.
The tech calmed himself with an effort. “I found this in the vehicle you asked me to check,” he said in a voice tinged with awe as he opened the fuming cabinet and dragged out a sword nearly four feet long.
Detective Strand eyed the piece curiously. “And?”
“I carbon dated it. This piece dates back to somewhere around the stone age.”
“A real antique, huh?”
The tech gaped at him speechlessly for several moments. “Itpre-dates the metal age,” he emphasized, his voice carrying a thread of hysterical laughter. “It's--it's probably the find of this century.”
Detective Strand looked at him in disgust. “Which means zero. Did you find anything I can use on the damned case or not? DNA?”
Several emotions washed over the tech's face. Disappointment was one, outrage another, but at the mention of DNA, he perked up again. “That blue stuff--you're not going to belief this shit!”
“Probably not,” Detective Strand said dryly, “and unless it's got something to do with my case, I don't give a shit.”
“It's blood. Not human, can't be, too many strands, but some match human--but the DNA is off the charts. I've never seen anything like it. The persons these blood samples came from are--well, they would be like super human, I suppose--except they aren't human despite the similarity of some of the markers--I don't think.”
“Wait--run that by me again. Persons? There was more than one? Was either one of them that low life, Enrico?”
The tech stared at him with his jaw at half mast. “Not the blue blood--I did find his DNA--Enrico's--on the window glass, though. No doubt about it. He is the one that put his fist through it. But....”
Strand cut him off. “That's all I need to hear,” he said with satisfaction. “I'll have a uniform pick that sleaze ball up.
* * * *
Kylee was still trying to think up a convincing story to tell the cops when she pushed through the doors of the precinct. She completely saw Gabriel's point about the damned sword. It was his, and it washerfault it was missing and therefore her responsibility to retrieve it, but she had no idea how the hell she was going to manage it.
She'd just stopped at the desk to ask if Detective Strand was in when he hailed her from across the room.
“Good! I was just about to call you. I had forensics check out the car.”
Kylee felt the blood rush from her face. A wave of weakness followed it.
Strand frowned. “You ok? Come on in my office and have a seat.”
She didn't really want to go to his office, but she was certainly in no condition to run, which was her first thought. By the time she'd sunk into the chair in his office, it occurred to her that she had no reason to feel guilty. She hadn't done anything wrong.
Nothing illegal, she mentally corrected.
“Feeling better?” Strand asked as he sat behind his desk.
Kylee managed a nod. She didn't feel a whole lot better, though. She felt a little nauseated in all honesty. She'd been uneasy when she'd realized she was going to have to try to get into the vehicle in the impound lot. Now she didn't know what to do.
“Good news! We got the bastard. Got his DNA all over the window. With your statement and the evidence, we can send him away for a while. I'm charging him with deadly assault. The pictures we got last night and your testimony ought to be enough to make a slam dunk.”
Kylee struggled to shift gears. She'd already told the detective she didn't want Enrico sent up for assault. She wanted him charged with murder. How was she going to get evidence on him if he was locked up?
“You've caught him?” she asked finally.
“We're looking for him. It's only a matter of time. You'll need to give me contact information so that we can get you up here to testify when the time comes--I assume you're planning on going home soon?”
Kylee stared at the man. The emphasis on that last comment was clear enough. He was 'suggesting' she go home. She didn't like being ordered around, not even with subtlety. “I suppose,” she said finally. “I have to take care of that rental, though, first.”
Strand shrugged. “It's part of a crime scene. We'll release the car back to the agency when we're done with it.”
That sounded ominous, but not nearly as unnerving as his next question. “What were you doing with a sword in your car?”
A jolt went through Kylee. She did her best to hide her reaction.
“Technically, it constitutes a concealed weapon since it was found under your seat, but the tech says it's some kind of antique.”
Surprise filtered through Kylee. He was offering her an out. She'd been trying to think up a lie, but decided just to tell him the truth--or the part he might believe anyway. “I found it by the car when I got out--after Enrico took off. I don't know why I picked it up--except I could see it must be valuable and I didn't want to leave it there.”
Strand frowned. “Curious thing is, the tech said it had blood on it--really strange blood. That blue stuff all over the hood--turned out to be blood.”
Widening her eyes, Kylee did her very best to look shocked, appalled, and thoroughly confused. She wasn't certain how well it worked, but not well if Strand's expression was anything to go by.
“Anything you want to tell me?”
He wouldn't believe her if she did tell him. She knew that. She wouldn't have believed it herself if she hadn't been there, seen it, and then seen the--angel or whatever he was afterwards--alien, she decided. “Like what?” she hedged.
He shrugged, seeming to dismiss it. “You should consider going home as soon as possible. I doubt it's likely Enrico knows where you are, but you can't be too careful.”
Kylee nodded, pushing to her feet. “About the sword….”
Strand's brows rose questioningly.
“What will happen with that?”
He shrugged. “If it doesn't have anything to do with this case--which I can't see that it does--it'll stay in the evidence room until we see if we can locate the owner--since you said it wasn't you and you found it.”
Kylee felt like kicking herself. “I did find it, though,” she managed to say after a moment. “If it isn't claimed, I'd like to have it.”
“Check back with me in a month or so,” Strand said, getting to his feet.
Dismayed as she was, there was nothing Kylee could do but nod and leave. Gabriel grabbed her as she passed the alley beside the building, dragging her into it.
“Well?”
Kylee's heart was still in her throat. Anger swiftly overtook the fear when she saw it was Gabriel, then dipped into fear again as she stared up at him. Whatever he was, he was probably a lot more dangerous than Enrico--and he was not going to be happy about his sword.
“It isn't in the car anymore.”
“I know,” he responded, his lips set into a grim line.
Kylee blinked, but she wasn't going to ask him how he'd managed to find and search the car. “They've got it in there--I think. The detective said it was evidence in the crime scene and the lab had it doing their thing, then it would go into the evidence room. Or maybe it's there already?”
When Kylee nerved herself to see how he was taking the news, she discovered Gabriel had disappeared. One moment he was there and then, in the blink of an eye, gone. She hadn't heard a thing.
Confused, she looked around the alley, deserted except for her, and then frowned, wondering if she was hallucinating. Had he not been there at all?
She was still looking around in bewilderment when she noticed a strange phenomenon. The wall nearest her seemed to have turned liquid--sort of. She blinked, trying to focus her vision, certain it must be some trick of the light or her eyes. Before she could decide what it was, Gabriel stepped through it.
He was holding his sword.
Kylee felt her jaw sag to half mast.
He studied her frowningly for a moment and finally hooked a hand around the back of her neck, dragging her toward him. Kylee was too shocked even to enjoy the kiss as he dipped his head and thoroughly ravished her mouth--almosttoo shocked. Just about the time she swayed toward him, feeling warmth flooding through her, he released her, set her away from him and--his wings appeared.
Kylee was still trying to assimilate the fact that they hadn't been there moments before when he launched himself into the sky and vanished in a matter of seconds.
“I need to lie down,” she muttered, looking around the alley a little dazed.
She might have stood like a dolt in the alley longer except that it occurred to her suddenly that Gabriel had just waltzed right through the police station, collected his sword and walked out again.
She didn't want to be anywhere near the place when they realized the sword was gone. Leaving the alley, she walked briskly to the corner and hailed a cab.
Once she'd settled in the seat, she wasn't certain of where she wanted to go. She finally decided, however, that she'd just had too many shocks too closely together. Her mind was completely disordered, probably at least partly because of the medication she'd been given for pain.
Finally, she simply told the driver to take her back to the room she'd rented. She would rest, she decided, and then when she was a little clearer in her mind, she would decide what she wanted to do.
* * * *
Kylee ended up taking a two hour 'nap' and felt almost worse when she first got up than before she'd lain down. After a long hot shower, though, she'd begun to feel almost human. Wiping the steam off the bathroom mirror, she studied her bruises. A shiver skated down her spine as it sank into her just how close she'd come to dying. If Gabriel and the enemy he'd been battling hadn't landed on her car at precisely the moment they did….
She frowned at the thought of Gabriel, wondering what sort of battle was going on. Was it some sort of personal vendetta with another of his kind? Or something broader? And why had they been fighting with swords of all things?
The mystery surrounding Gabriel was almost as bizarre as--well, Gabriel. If she'd been a religious sort of person--which she wasn't--she would've been poring over a bible trying to figure out what was going on. She didn't believe he was anything close to being a deity, however, or that there was anything of any religious significance to the fight that had ended on the hood of her car. She wasn't certain what was going on, but she didn't believe that.
Alien?
She supposed if he wasn't human--and he wasn't--and if he wasn't a deity or heavenly being--which she didn't believe--there wasn't much left but alien. What sort of alien race would have the technology to travel to Earth, though, and then fight with swords? And why fight at all?
Were they fighting over who could claim the place?
Unnerving thought, but she dismissed it after a moment. If aliens were slugging it out to claim Earth, she felt fairly confident everybody would know.
He'd acknowledged that he was of another race. He'd also spoken about superstitions his people had about hers--which meant the Elumi knew about humans whether humans knew about them or not.
So maybe they'd been around a while, coming and going for whatever reason and they'd been seen in the past? It seemed pretty farfetched on one level, but what would have made people from the past believe they were seeing and sometimes interacting with God-like beings if they'd never encountered something to make them believe that?
It still confused her to think that the Elumi could have had the ability to travel to Earth for centuries and behave so--barbarically that they fought one another with swords.
Now that she thought about it, though, his clothing was very reminiscent of statuary and paintings she'd seen from way back--which meant that if she'd guessed right, they hadn't changed a lot.
It didn't take much thought to figure out the sarong. He had wings. Unless she'd been hallucinating earlier, he also had the ability to 'vanish' them. It was fairly easy to figure out why he wouldn't want to wear anything that would impede his ability to make the change.
She wondered if he could change besides that, make himself assume a completely different form.
Her eyes widened as it occurred to her to wonder if he even really looked like he had appeared to her. What if he had just made himself look like that?
She dismissed that after a moment. Why make himself look almost human but with wings? It didn't make any sense.
Realizing she'd been staring blankly at the mirror long enough the mirror had dried, she finished drying herself, combed the tangles from her wet hair and left the bathroom to search for a change of clothes.
Gabriel was lying on the bed, his arms propped behind his head.
Kylee let out a whoop, did a war dance, and fled back into the bathroom before it dawned on her that it was Gabriel. When she'd wrapped herself in her towel, she peered around the edge of the door again.
Gabriel was staring back at her, a bemused look on his face.
“You scared the hell out of me! What are you doing here?”
He came up on one elbow, studying her assessingly for several moments. “I brought food,” he said finally.
Kylee glanced toward the table in one corner of the room, saw that white Styrofoam containers were stacked on it, and looked at Gabriel again. “But--I thought--you said you were just looking for your sword.”
His eyes narrowed. A faint smile curled his lips. “Tonight I came to find my sheath.”
“Your sheath?” Kylee repeated blankly. “I didn't see a…. Very funny!”
He came up off of the bed and began to move toward her, slowly, as if he thought she would run if he rushed her--which she would have. She didn't feel threatened, however, and it didn't even occur to her to slam the door and lock it.
Not that that would've done her a hell of a lot of good. She knew she hadn't imagined seeing him pass through the brick wall of the police station as if it was nothing more substantial than air.
“I may have given you the wrong impression when--uh--before,” she said a little unsteadily.
He stopped when he was toe to toe with her, placing his hands on her shoulders and kneading them. “How is that?”
“Uh--well--I--uh--I think it was the drug--partly. I got carried away with the moment. I don't usually do things like that and I hardly know you--well, actually, I don't know you at all and I didn't then either, but….”
“You will,” he murmured, threading one hand beneath her damp hair and pulling her closer.
Desire flooded through her as his lips skated lightly over hers and their breaths mingled. “I shouldn't,” she said doubtfully, breathless with anticipation.
He nibbled at her lips. “Because?”
Chapter Five
Because, why? Kylee couldn't think of a single reason not to at the moment.
He slipped his hands down along her arms, catching her wrists, and then tugged her with him to the bed. She followed like a sleepwalker, mesmerized by the promise in his eyes. Pulling the towel from her, he tossed it aside and then removed his sarong and flung it the way of the towel.
Her breath caught in her throat as he lowered her to the bed and settled half on the bed beside her, half covering her. One hair roughened leg stroked along hers before settling between them as he supported himself on an elbow and explored her body with his gaze and his free hand. Currents of warmth and excitement eddied and flowed through her from the feel of his warm, faintly calloused fingers and palm. Through half closed lids she watched the skate of his hand as it roamed her body, gently cupping one breast, smoothing down over her midriff and belly and finally gently plucking the curls on her mound. After teasing the sensitive nether lips briefly, he moved upward once more in his exploration, tracing the curve of her hip with his large palm and long fingers, the dip of her waist, and then moving up to cup one breast again and pluck gently at the nipple that hardened and nudged against his palm.
“You are a beautiful woman, Kylee,” he murmured, lifting his gaze to hers at last, “pleasing to my eyes, to my touch--to my taste.” He leaned closer, until the tip of his nose brushed her skin, breathing deeply and nibbling a row of kisses along her neck and collar bone. “Now I understand why this is forbidden. There is much truth to the tales. I thought that I had supped from your lips and drank my fill. Instead, I only thirst more than before,” he whispered near her ear, sending shivers of want and anticipation through her. Her belly quivered as he sucked her earlobe into his mouth.
He lifted his head after a moment, staring down at her and Kylee opened her eyes with an effort. He cupped her face in his hand. “Are you certain death, Kylee? Or salvation? My thirst for war has dimmed before my thirst for you,” he murmured, leaning down and covering her mouth in a kiss of unrestrained passion, of need, of possession that made her senses reel.
The questions startled her, filled her with a nameless dread, but the heat of his kiss banished awareness of anything beyond the feel of his mouth on hers. It was drugging, depriving her of any will to resist that remained, though there was little enough of that from the moment he had looked into her eyes with desire. His taste engulfed her, entranced her as he laid siege to her senses, stroking his tongue along hers possessively, exploring the heated, keenly sensitive cavern of her mouth with a thoroughness that made her heart leap, pounding frantically, and her breath catch in her chest.
She might know little or nothing about him, but her body knew his well as her pleasure master, responding with a will all its own, a desperation to experience the ecstasy he had wrung from it before. Murmuring a sound of need, she laced her fingers through his silky hair, urging him closer, kissing him back with abandon, her mind and body already pounding with the need for full possession. Heat and moisture collected in her sex. Blood engorged the tiny capillaries in her most sensitive places, making her feel swollen and achy with a need only his touch could assuage.
He drew his knee up between her thighs. They parted in invitation before his advance, until his erection nudged against her nether lips. Skimming a hand downward along her body once more, he traced a path that went directly to her mound, parting the swollen lips with one long finger and exploring the hot wetness of her arousal. Breathing gustily into her mouth at his discovery, he broke the kiss and shifted to catch one erect nipple between his lips, plucking at it briefly before he sucked it into his mouth.
Gasping in a sharp breath, Kylee arched upward to meet the tantalizing heat of his mouth and tongue as jolt after jolt of keen sensation arrowed through her, colliding in her belly with the exquisite sensations touched off by his exploring finger along her cleft. The muscles in her belly clenched, seeking his hard, heated length, needing it with a growing desperation.
Unable to move the leg he lay against, she dragged the other one upward, bending her knee and bracing one foot against the mattress as she spread her thighs wider to accommodate his broad palm. Accepting the invitation, he shifted over her. Lifting his head from her breast, he captured her lips once more, settling his narrow hips between her thighs and surging against her so that his swollen member scraped along her tender inner thighs and butted the sensitive flesh of her sex.
Kylee sucked in a sharp breath, arching her back and spreading her thighs wider still until she felt his hardened flesh plowing along her cleft. Shifting his weight, he reached between them and aligned their bodies, pressing steadily until he had buried the head of his cock in her channel. She held her breath, held still, panting as her body slowly adjusted to his intrusion.
Dragging his lips from hers, he burrowed his face against her neck, breathing raggedly as he forced his engorged cock deeper, by agonizingly slow degrees until he filled her completely. He pushed his upper body upward then, supporting himself with his arms, studying her face as he stroked her inner passage with his heated length. Sensing his gaze, she opened her eyes with an effort. His face, taut with his own need and his efforts at self restraint sent a shaft of need through her. The muscles in her belly clenched in response, tightening around him. A look of pleasure/pain skimmed his features. He sucked in a harsh breath, holding it. A tremor went through the bulging muscles of his arms.
Releasing his breath on a hoarse groan after a moment, he lowered himself against her. Burrowing his face along her neck and slipping his hands beneath her hips, he began to move within her, stroking his flesh along hers feverishly. Kylee's gasps of pleasure became moans of desperation as her body tautened with the escalation of sensation and grew tighter still until she felt she could contain no more. And still it grew, expanding until she couldn't catch her breath, until her heart could not seem to keep pace with the flood of adrenaline through her, until her struggle to drag enough oxygen into her lungs made darkness crowd close upon the fringes of her mind.
When it burst upon her, rolling over her like a tidal wave, the sensation of release was so exquisite, she uttered sharp, keening criesshe was scarcely aware of. The convulsing of her vaginal muscles in the throes of passion sent him over the edge. A deep groan seemed to be dragged from his chest as his cock jerked and convulsed, pumping his hot seed against her womb.
He settled heavily against her as the last waves of rapture rolled over him and began to dissipate. Gasping for breath, still shuddering, he nuzzled her neck, sucked a love bite just beneath her ear.
Scarcely aware of anything beyond the cloud of repletion and utter contentment that enveloped her, Kylee merely lay limp beneath his caresses, struggling to gather her senses to her once more.
Minutes passed in a haze. Finally, almost reluctantly, he pulled away from her. Settling beside her on the bed on his back, he gathered her against him, stroking her back.
Sighing, Kylee reveled in his soothing caress, feeling almost like purring with contentment. She'd begun to drift lazily, more than half tempted to relax into sleep, when he moved away from her and got out of the bed.
Roused, Kylee rolled onto her side, watching him as he strode across the room and stood examining the plates of food. A faint smile curled her lips. She was still smiling when he glanced toward her.
An answering smile gleamed in his eyes. “Hungry?”
She searched herself and discovered with a little surprise that she was. She nodded, but got up from the bed and went into the bathroom to clean up. Grabbing another towel when she'd finished, she wrapped it around herself like a sarong, tucking one corner edge in and went back into the main room. Gabriel was sprawled in the bed, eating.
She sent him a disapproving frown. “You'll have the bed full of crumbs.”
He held out a hand to her. After a moment, she answered the summons, settling on the opposite side of the bed. He offered a tidbit of food. When she reached to take it, however, he closed his hand over it, shaking his head. Feeling a little shy, a little embarrassed, she leaned toward him again, opening her mouth. He placed the tidbit on her tongue.
It was chicken, fried and barely warm now, but it tasted it delicious. She chewed it, looking around for something to drink. After a moment, she got up and went to the table. Collecting the bottled drinks there and another container of food, she returned to the picnic on the bed and examined the contents, then fed him a piece of chicken.
She frowned slightly as she took another bite. “Are you--forbidden to tell me anything about yourself?”
He looked a little surprised. After a moment, amusement gleamed in his eyes. “We are forbidden to have any congress with humans. The rest hardly matters--now.”
Kylee nodded. “Where are you from?”
“My home lies in Tearra in Pearthen--high Earth--beyond the gateway.”
The explanation only left Kylee more confused. “High Earth--then you're not…?” She paused. “Is it, like another dimension?”
“Clever and beautiful,” he murmured approvingly, offering her another tidbit of food.
Wryly, Kylee thought she wasn't that clever. It still boggled her mind. It would've been easier to grasp another world altogether than a dimension unseen and inaccessible to humans. “Why are you here?”
His lips twisted. Anger filled his eyes. “I am banished for displeasing my king. It has always been the way of things--to be banished from our own beautiful kingdom into the land of humans--lower Earth--as punishment--when death is not the punishment. When war erupted once more, though, the banished grew rapidly in numbers. It is much harder to please the king, much easier to fall from grace, when he is beset by enemies.”
Kylee stared at him while she tried to assimilate that. It was almost as if they'd been caught in a time warp that kept them prisoner of the dark ages--or something like the dark ages of Earth.
“So--when did your people discover the gateway and learn about humans?”
He chuckled. “My people discovered the gateway long before humans evolved into an intelligent species. We evolved here on lower Earth first, built our civilization here. We passed through the gateway when the human infestation became--intolerable to us.”
Kylee reddened at the insult. It didn't matter than he hadn't intended to insult her. In fact it made it worse since it made it obvious he felt humans were beneath his own race.
Or maybe species was the correct word? He had lumped all of the races of man together.Washe a member of another species? Or an earlier variety of human?
His blood was blue, not red, but she didn't know if that was significant or not. There was also the fact that his molecular structure seemed to differ tremendously--the wings which he could sprout at will, the staggering ability to heal wounds that would have been mortal to a human.
She shook that thought off. On a personal level, it didn't matter, really. She certainly had not been able to tell the difference in so far as their 'mating' went--unless she counted the fact that she had not had sex with anyone before that took her to such heights, but that only seemed to indicate a chemical similarity between them, not a difference.
And, in any case, there was no commitment here, or expectation of one, and no relationship. He enjoyed her body. She enjoyed his. It was as uncomplicated as that.
“So--it's a form of punishment to have to live among us?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “Nay. The punishment is to be banished from all those we know, all those things familiar to us and to live on lower Earth without even the succor of contact with humans. As I said, it is forbidden. And the only chance we have to shorten our sentence of solitude is to best an enemy of the king and win his favor once more. And so we search for others of our kind, fight our enemies here, and each hope to win the victory that will allow us to return home.”
Slightly mollified, Kylee nodded, but she frowned again at one thing that was bothering her. She had been hesitant to ask for fear of insulting him, but he hadn't seemed to have any qualms about insulting her. “This war--fighting with swords--it seems very archaic to me. We did that long ago, but weapons have advanced a lot in the wars of mankind--everything has.”
Instead of appearing insulted, he looked amused. “You think we are barbaric because we do not use the same weapons to kill each other that you do? Because we find it unnecessary to kill the innocent with the guilty by using weapons that kill everything in its path? You think the things that you surround yourself with are a necessary evidence of superior intelligence and advancement of civilization? The man who attacked you--he carried a blade. I have seen many that do. These things you consider the trappings of advanced civilization, they are the product of need, want, desire for change. We are content as we are, with who we are. This world seems primitive to us.”
Kylee frowned, but she could certainly see his point. It was hard to convince anyone that mankind was superior when their animal side still dwelt closely to the surface and they erupted into brutal, violent behavior with regularity.
He tapped her chin. When she looked up at him, he hooked his hand behind her head and dragged her close, kissing her briefly and releasing her. Slipping from the bed, he headed into the bathroom.
He didn't close the door and, more than a little uncomfortable with such intimacy, Kylee concentrated on cleaning up the remains of their meal and disposing of it, trying not to feel domestic about the whole situation. Relieved when she heard the sound of the shower, she searched her suitcase for something to wear, wondering if he'd been teasing when he'd made that remark about her having a man.
He must have been, she decided. Or maybe it was just one of those 'lines' men fed women because they thought it was what they wanted to hear, the hint of a promise of some sort of commitment, or relationship?
Irritation surfaced. So their one night stand had turned out to be more than one. She wasn't looking for a commitment, and if she had been it would've been with someone alittlecloser to her own tribe.
Chapter Six
As unnerved as she'd been by the incident with Enrico, Kylee discovered that the moment the worst of her fear wore off, her conviction returned.
She did not want to settle for getting the bastard in jail for assaulting her. He deserved the death penalty for what he'd done to her sister. She might not be able to manage that, but she wanted him to serve life at least. A few years were probably nothing to a low life like that. He was just the sort to be involved in all sorts of things that he could use to plead his charges and jail time down. Even if that wasn't the case, he'd probably end up running his business from prison and come out as if nothing had ever happened to interrupt his life.
She'd botched the first attempt fairly badly, however, and all the careful plans she had made now belonged in the trash. She didn't think she could just pick up and start again. She supposed it had been stupid and theatrical to think she could just unnerve him by appearing and disappearing because she looked so much like Stacy.
It had unnerved him all right, but he'd known instantly exactly what she was trying to do.
So, if the chances were pretty much nil that she was going to get him to confess on tape, what was left? A trap with her as bait?
That might have some merit except that she doubted she could talk the detective into it and if she was dead she wasn't going to know if they'd got the bastard or not, which she would be if the cops weren't willing to help.
Finally, since nothing else came to mind, she decided to check and see how the case was going. If they hadn't managed to catch Enrico, maybe Strand would be willing to consider the possibility.
Go to the police station, she wondered? Or just call?
Since it occurred to her that Strand might ask her some unpleasant questions about the sword, she decided she would call and test the water.
She found his card in her purse after a brief search and settled down on the side of the bed to make the call. He picked up on the third ring. “Detective Strand.”
“It's Kylee--Griffin.”
“I figured you'd be on your way home.” He sounded disapproving.
“I'm going in a few days. I just wanted to know if you'd caught that guy.”
He was silent for several moments. “We'll find him. It's only a matter of time.”
“So you haven't caught him yet?”
“Not yet--but it's only been a couple of days. He'll lay low for a little while, but he won't be able to do that long. It's bad for his business.”
Kylee thought it over for several moments. “I could smoke him out.”
“Don't you even think about it!” Strand growled. “You damned near got yourself killed the last time. Have you got a death wish or something?”
“Not for myself!” Kylee snapped before she thought better of it. “Look, I just want him caught, ok? I'd like to know he's in jail before I go back home. I don't want to check back in a couple of months and find out this has ended up in the damned cold case files like my sister's murder.”
“Stay out of it, Ms Griffin. I mean it. This is police business and if I have to I'll run you in for interfering in a crime investigation.”
Kylee grew angry. “Right! I forgot you always like to go after the easy ones. Is there another detective working on this case I could talk to?”
“It's my case,” Strand growled. “But now that I have you on the phone, there's something that's been bothering me. You know anything about that sword we found in your car? The one you claimed you'd just found?”
Kylee's stomach clenched. “What about it?”
“It mysteriously vanished from the lab, that's what.”
She was silent for several moments, thinking. “And you're implying…?”
“I ain't implying anything. I'm asking you if you know anything about it.”
“I told you before that I didn't. I found it. It looked valuable, so I didn't just walk off and leave it lying where I found it. I figured if nothing else there would probably be a reward for the recovery,” she added on sudden inspiration.
He was silent for several moments. “You don't strike me as the type to be looking for rewards.”
“I don't think you're familiar with my 'type', detective.” She hesitated, but when he didn't respond to that remark, she decided to just take the plunge. “Look, I was thinking about taking a walk downtown tonight to see the sights. Maybe you could suggest some points of interest?”
“Do, and I'll arrest you,” Strand growled.
“For sightseeing? I didn't know that was illegal.”
“You and I both know you ain't talking about sightseeing, and I ain't going for it, Griffin.”
“Fine. I'm still going. I think I'll take in a game of pool. I always did like that game.”
“You're going to get your fool self kill--”
She hung up before he could get the rest of it out, but that didn't change the fact that she knew he was right. The place was dangerous. Even if she didn't manage to draw Enrico out, there were so many 'bad guys' in that area the chances were still good that somebody would attack her.
She was fairly certain she couldn't count on Strand either. He might send a patrol car down and he might not. For that matter, he was liable to send someone over to her place just to watch her.
It occurred to her after a little thought that the place wouldn't be nearly as dangerous before dark. The predators mostly came out at night. Someone was bound to see her if she took a stroll though, probably somebody that knew Enrico and could make sure he got the message. She might even run across somebody that was willing to talk to her about him--maybe one of his girls.
The cabby gave her a strange look when she told him where she wanted to go.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes. I'm sure.”
Shrugging, he drove her to the street she'd named. “What address?”
“You can drop me by the pool hall.”
He didn't offer to wait. Consternation filled her as she watched the cab take off again as soon as she was out.
She hadn't considered she wasn't going to have any way to make a quick getaway.
Dismissing it finally, she turned and headed for the pool hall. It wasn't open for business yet and it was locked up tight. Thwarted, Kylee checked her watch and turned to scan the street.
It was late afternoon and the sun was already dipping behind the tall buildings, but the sidewalks were still virtually deserted. She didn't especially want to be caught in the area after dark, but she was determined to at least flaunt her presence if she couldn't do anything else.
Nothing, as far as she could see, would more surely piss Enrico off--that he'd threatened her and now he was the one in hiding and she wasn't intimidated.
Actually, she was, because she might be crazy, but she wasn't completely stupid.
After several minutes of indecision, she finally decided just to stroll down two blocks, cross over and come back. If she saw anyone along the way, she could try to talk to them about her sister. If not, she had a feeling she was being watched anyway and at the very least, Enrico would know she'd been strolling through his territory, looking for information about him. If she could rattle him enough, maybe he'd make a mistake bad enough the cops would actually be able to catch him.
She managed to talk to a bag lady and a wino for about three seconds each. The wino listened and then tried to bum money off of her. Digging a five out of her pocket, she waved it in front of his face. He licked his lips, studying it like it was a piece of steak, but he only managed to produce a story that was so blatantly a lie she knew he hadn't seen or heard anything about her sister.
The bag lady looked at her like she was a demon and tore off down an alley, abandoning her cart. Without stopping to consider the wisdom of it, Kylee tore off behind the woman. The only reason that she could think of that the woman had looked at her like that was because her face was familiar--which meant she would've seen Stacy if she hadn't known her.
The woman was stunningly fast. By the time Kylee managed to get around the buggy she'd abandoned, the woman was halfway down the alley to the next block. “Wait! I just wanted to ask you a few questions!”
That only seemed to spur the woman to more speed. She rounded the corner at the end of the alley and disappeared. Huffing for breath, Kylee halted when she'd rounded the corner, staring at the street, which was just about as empty as the one she'd just come from. There was no sign of the bag lady.
Catching her breath, she jogged down to the next alley and peered down it just in time to see a flash of color at the other end.
“Shit! She doubled back!” She should have known the woman wasn't just going to abandon her worldly belongings.
Wondering if there was even any point in it, Kylee ran after her, hoping the buggy would slow the woman down enough she could catch her. As she rounded the end of the alley, however, she slammed into a man. The collision stunned her. Sluggishly, self preservation kicked in and she glanced up at the man, terrified at the thought that she might have run right into Enrico.
It wasn't Enrico.
She knew instantly that he wasn't even a denizen of this neck of the woods. She didn't know how she knew, but there was just something about him--something really unnerving.
Pulling away from him abruptly, Kylee fled. She was only slightly relieved when she heard no pursuit. When she finally glanced back, she discovered the man had disappeared. Down the alley?
She looked upwards instead. She didn't see anything, but she realized the moment she did it why she'd looked up.
Somehow, although she wasn't certain exactly why, the man had reminded her of Gabriel.
A shiver skated down her spine. The 'man' he'd been fighting that first night?
Try though she might, she couldn't summon enough of an image to say for certain. The long hair meant nothing. It wasn't stylish anymore, but there were still plenty of guys that wore it long, especially in this area--except that he had been too clean and too clean cut to belong here.
Shrugging it off when she saw no sign that he was following her, she hurried down the sidewalk looking for the woman she'd been chasing. Not surprisingly, there was no sign of her. After walking along the sidewalk, peering into the alleys and doorways for a while, she finally realized that it was getting dark and more and more people were beginning to appear on the sidewalks.
Abandoning her search immediately, she hurried briskly away from the area, keeping an eye out for a cab. She had to walk nearly four blocks before she managed to hail one and by then it was fully dark. Relief surged through her when she settled in the back seat and gave the man the directions to the room she'd rented.
She wondered if she'd only imagined the guy being like Gabriel. She hadn't seen Gabriel in several days, not that she'd been expecting him or anything, but maybe it was something latent, maybe subconsciously she was looking for Gabriel?
She shook the thought off. Gabriel was probably long gone by now. He'd needed his sword. She'd helped him locate it. He'd come back for seconds--which she supposed she should have been flattered by--and that was that. Regardless of the comments he'd made that first night when they were together, he'd merely been curious. He'd said as much. Obviously, he'd enjoyed it as much as she had--poor guy. There was no telling how long it had been since he had gotten a little sexual relief.
Or even had a soul to talk to.
She could relate to loneliness. There were probably a lot of people who could, which was unreal. As many lonesome people as there were, it did look like more could get together with the other lonely ones.
That wasn't an option for Gabriel, of course. She just hoped he didn't get into trouble for spending time with her and it didn't hurt his chances of going home.
That thought so depressed her, she shied away from it, turning her mind to the woman she'd chased instead.
She might have imagined the whole thing, of course.
Poor woman! What if she hadn't known anything at all and just wondered why the kook was chasing her?
Then again, it might have been nothing except that she had seen Stacy when Stacy lived in the area. If she had recognized the resemblance, it didn't mean she knew anything about what had happened.
Maybe, she decided when she'd paid the cabby and gotten out at the hotel/apartment rentals where she was staying, she would wait a couple of days and try again. It was at least worth a shot to see if the woman knew anything about Stacy's murder.
She could always hope she'd managed to stumble onto a witness that could put the bastard away forever.
* * * *
Kylee was washing her hair when she felt a presence behind her. She let out a shriek as two arms encircled her that came out as a gurgle when the shower immediately filled her mouth with water. Choking, coughing, her eyes stinging from the shampoo, Kylee whirled to face the threat.
Her knees nearly gave out when she saw it was Gabriel.
“Damn it! You scared thehellout of me!” Kylee raged, so weak with relief she had to fight the urge to burst into tears.
Gabriel's smile died. He looked her over frowningly. “Why are you so fearful?”
Swallowing the lump in her throat with an effort, Kylee shook her head. “Nothing, really. My problem, not yours. I'm just a little nervous, that's all.”
He caught her shoulders when she would've turned away. “It is more than that.” He studied her face for several moments. “It is because of that man who attacked you? Did your--authority not catch this man?”
Ignoring the question, Kylee pulled free and moved under the showerhead to wash the soap from her hair. Gabriel, she saw when she swiped the water from her eyes, was still studying her keenly. “Not yet,” she said finally, stepping out of the shower and grabbing a towel.
Stripping off his sodden sarong, he shut the water off and followed her out. “Tell me what troubles you,” he demanded, grasping her shoulders.
“It's something from the past, not anything you could help me with even if you wanted to.”
He frowned. “Why would you think I wouldnotwant to?”
Kylee stared at him in surprise. “Why would I think you wouldwantto? We're strangers. And I'm human.”
Shaking her head, she tried to pull away from him. His hands tightened around her shoulders. “Are you lying to me? Or trying to lie to yourself?”
Kylee swallowed with an effort, but she found she couldn't meet his penetrating gaze. “I don't know what you mean.”
He shook his head slowly. “You do. I see it in your eyes when you look at me. I feel it in your touch.” He shifted closer, dragging her head back and burying his face against her neck, sucking tiny love bites from her collar bone upward to one ear.
Goosebumps erupted all over her. Desire exploded inside her, a full fledged inferno of need that should never have happened--not with any man she had known less than a week--certainly not with a man of another world entirely.
When he found his way to her lips, she was lost. She met his kiss with desperate longing, wanting to believe what he'd implied--that she meant something to him, that she was more than a warm and willing body to him.
They came together tumultuously, with little preliminary, kissing and touching with feverish need. When she had wrapped herself tightly around him, he carried her to the bed, sprawling on the mattress with her and thrusting into her almost at once. She was more than ready for him. Her body already ached with the yearning to have him inside of her. Her sex was hot, wet with her longing.
Arching over her, he buried his face against her neck as he buried his cock deeply within her flesh. Sucking almost painfully at the tender flesh of her neck, he thrust and retreated with hard, powerful strokes that drove her to the brink within moments and then thrust her beyond the boundaries of endurance. She cried out as her body exploded with mind blowing bliss. Shuddering, he followed her to that wondrous plane of ecstasy.
Holding her tightly against him, he rolled when he had caught his breath so that she lay sprawled limply on top of him, her ear pressed to his heaving chest, his heart thundering comfortingly in her ear.
Minutes passed while their bodies labored to return to normal. Finally, he lifted a hand and began to stroke her back, tracing soothing circles over it. “You do not live in this place.”
Kylee roused slightly. It wasn't a question, though. “No. I live in a much smaller town south of here.”
“You came because of that man. He is your enemy?”
Sighing, Kylee lifted her head to look at him. “It's not the same here that it is in your world.”
His lips tightened. “I do not suffer a poor understanding. I know this. I told you I was forbidden to interact with humans. I did not say I had not observed this society of yours. I have had much time to study your people. From a distance, true, but I believe I have a fair understanding nevertheless. I also understand you--now. That was no chance encounter that first time I saw you, though I had thought so at the time.”
“No. I went looking for him. He killed my little sister--more than a year ago. The police haven't got the evidence they need to arrest him, though.”
She saw confusion in Gabriel's eyes. “I am not familiar with this--sister?”
Surprise went through Kylee. “The children that belong in a family--when it's a female, it's a sister. A boy would be a brother. There were only two of us, though. She was born when I was four--a fairly large age difference, actually. I'd already left home for college when she reached her teens.”
He still looked confused, which surprised Kylee. He spoke English so well it hadn't occurred to her that it wasn't his first language--although it should have--and that there would be words he wasn't familiar with. She had the feeling, though, that it wasn't the word so much as the concept. His next comment confirmed her suspicion.
“This is common among you? Two offspring?”
Kylee shrugged. “I suppose. I've known a lot of people that were an only child, but I also know a lot more that have much larger families--three or four, sometimes more than that. I don't know what the national average is. It isn't like that where you're from?”
He shook his head. “Most have one. Many have none. We are very long lived people. The females only come in season twice or perhaps three times and few have taken a mate when they are first in season.”
That boggled her mind--the 'in season' thing most of all, but the other comment made her wonder if it was some evolutionary thing because of their life spans. “How long lived?” she asked uneasily.
He shrugged and finally smiled wryly. “I have known no one who died of age. Most die in war--or battle of some sort anyway.”
She looked at him assessingly. “How old are you?”
His gaze flickered over her face. “Far older than you.”
He didn't want to tell her. She could tell from his expression that he didn't. She just wasn't certain why. Finally, she shrugged, looking away. “I don't suppose it matters.”
He tucked a finger beneath her chin, tipping her head up. “It does not.”
Meaning, what? He wasn't going to be around long enough for it to make any difference? She wasn't certain that that was the way he'd meant it, and yet she realized it was true.
“I will help you seek justice for the death of your sister.”
Kylee glanced at him sharply, feeling a wealth of conflicting emotions. Relief, she thought, was highest, for she didn't doubt for one moment that Gabriel could manage it if no one else could. “I was trying to get his confession on tape. Unless someone else saw it and is willing to testify against him, there's no other way, because they didn't find enough physical evidence to prove it. And it has to be proven beyond a shadow of doubt. If a jury doesn't feel that there is enough evidence to prove a person did something, then they are obligated to render a verdict of 'not guilty'.”
He nodded. “I will beat a confession out of him.”
Kylee bit her lip. “I'm not sure that would stand up in court.”
“You will record it.”
“But he can say that you made him say it and it wasn't true.”
Gabriel considered that for a moment. “No. I will tell him that if he does that I will come back. He will not want me to come back.”
Despite her earlier amusement at his suggested solution, Kylee felt a little shiver run down her spine. Gabriel had startled the hell out of her more than once with his sudden appearances, but she had not truly been afraid of Gabriel since she had known him. She realized quite suddenly, however, that he could be very scary if he chose.
“Now,” he added, slipping from the bed. “I will find food to feed you before you shrink more and make me worry that I will break you.”
Kylee gave him an indignant look. “I happen to be the right weight for my height and build!” And she worked damned hard to stay that way!
He grinned at her unrepentantly. “You are perfect--as you are. I do not want you to shrink,” he added, making a motion with his hands to show her he wasn't referring to her weight, but her stature.
An answering smile curled her lips despite her annoyance. He thought she was perfect! Before she could think of a comeback, he'd vanished. Shrugging, she went back into the bathroom to clean up. His sarong, still wet, still lay in the tub. Horrified at first, finally Kylee merely chuckled. Gabriel went around the next thing to naked now--and she doubted anyone would see him or that he'd care if they did. Wringing the fabric out when she'd bathed, she hung it to dry and went to look for something to wear.
Deciding not to bother with a bra since her clean laundry was running low, she pulled a T-shirt on without one and a pair of panties. She'd just pulled a pair of jeans over her hips when someone tapped at the door. Glancing toward it curiously, she adjusted her clothing and finally moved to the panel. “Who is it?”
She heard an indistinct male voice on the other side. After peering through the peephole and discovering she could see nothing more than a shoulder, she placed the security chain on the door and opened it cautiously.
The moment she unlocked the door and turned the knob, something slammed into the door so hard the chain popped loose. The force of the door slamming into her sent Kylee flying backwards. She didn't have time to do more than gasp sharply on an inhaled scream before she hit the foot of the bed a glancing blow and slammed into the floor, stunned. Before she could fully assimilate what was happening, she felt two hands digging into her arms, jerking her to her feet as if she was a rag doll.
Through a wall of wet hair, she peered at the man who had attacked her.
“You fucking cunt! I tole you to stay out of my business,putta! Now I got cops crawling all over my ass!” Enrico roared, shaking her so hard she thought her neck would snap.
Chapter Seven
Apparently tiring of shaking her, Enrico slapped Kylee, jerking her head sideways. Her body followed. She'd barely touched down when he grabbed her and jerked her to her feet again. His hands closed around her throat, pinching off her air. Instinct kicked in and Kylee clawed at Enrico's fingers, trying to pry them loose. There was a roaring in her ears, growing louder and louder that made it impossible to hear the curses he growled at her as he choked her and shook her like a pit bull with a terrier in its teeth. The light dimmed. Suddenly, she felt warmth at her back. An arm slid around her waist to support her. A hand reached from behind her and closed like a vice around Enrico's neck.
The fingers around her throat slackened, fell away. Still gasping for air, Kylee found herself freed of support and wilted to the floor between Enrico and Gabriel, struggling to focus her vision when blackness was crowding so close she could barely see.
Instead of slackening his grip on Enrico's through, Gabriel lifted the man clear of the floor. Enrico's eyes bulged, either from lack of oxygen, or sheer terror, or both as he looked into the face of the being that slammed him against the door he had burst through only moments before. Struggling to scream, Enrico gave up on trying to pry the fingers from his throat and began to fumble with the pockets of his pants.
“Watch out! He's got a knife!” Kylee gasped out hoarsely just as Enrico dragged a blade from his pocket, flicked it open, and shoved it to the hilt into Gabriel's mid section.
Kylee tried to scream but her bruised throat prevented more than a hoarse croak.
Gabriel exhaled on a grunt of pain, grabbing Enrico's hand in a grip that produced the distinctive, sickening crunch of breaking bones. Enrico's face contorted, though he didn't manage to force a scream out.
Wrenching the knife from Enrico's hand, Gabriel pulled it from his belly and dropped it to the floor. It bounced, landing near her and Kylee struggled to grab it, uncertain of whether she meant to make sure Enrico couldn't get it again, of if she wanted it for self-defense.
“This is the one who killed your sister?” Gabriel growled, turning to look down at Kylee.
Kylee struggled up on one arm, tried to swallow past her bruised throat and squeezed her eyes against the pain, coughing for several minutes when she choked. “Yes! He killed my sister,” she managed to gasp out in a hoarse whisper finally.
Before she could say anything else, Gabriel released his grip on Enrico's throat. Even as Enrico's feet hit the floor and his legs wobbled as he tried to support himself, Gabriel whipped his sword from its scabbard. Grabbing Enrico by the hair of his head, he swung the blade.
Kylee's first inkling that Gabriel meant to mete out justice himself was the sword in his hand. “No!” she cried even as the sword descended with lightning speed, cleaving Enrico's head cleanly from his shoulders.
A fountain of red spewed from the headless body. Something heavy and moist hit the floor with a sickening thud and rolled toward Kylee. She stared at Enrico's expression of horror, his lips still moving to form a scream he could no longer utter and then the blackness she had been trying to fight off consumed her.
She had no idea how long she lay unconscious, but she awoke to frantic activity. She was seized and hauled to her feet before she could manage to open her eyes. Terror immediately assailed her and she screamed hoarsely. The effort gagged her and she choked, coughing for several moments before she could control the spasms.
“What the hell happened here?” a familiar voice growled. “Did you do this?”
Kylee opened her eyes with an effort, staring at Detective Strand blankly.
“Did you do this?” he barked the demand again, gesturing toward the floor.
Kylee's stomach rebelled when she followed his gesture, clenching so hard she thought for several moments that she would throw up. Blood had formed a huge pool beside Enrico's headless body. When she had followed the flow of the pool to her toes, she saw that she was coated with the blood.
Clutched in one hand, she saw to her horror, was Enrico's knife. She dropped it abruptly, wondering how she had come to be holding it at all. Dimly, she remembered picking it up when Gabriel had tossed it to the floor, remembered some vague thought of using it to defend herself.
“I didn't! I didn't kill him!” she managed to choke out the denial finally as someone hauled her arms behind her back, twisting them painfully and roughly binding her wrists.
Strand's face hardened. “I suppose his head just sort of popped off his shoulders? Christ almighty, this was stupid! We had him! You just had to take matters into your own hands, didn't you?”
Kylee gaped at him. “No! I didn't do this. Gabriel did it!” She glanced around the room a little frantically, searching for him, stunned to see that he was not among the people crowding the room.
Something flickered in Strand's eyes. “Gabriel?”
“Yes! Gabriel! The--uh--the Elumi. He was here. Enrico broke the door in and grabbed me by the throat and Gabriel appeared behind me….” Her voice petered to a halt when she realized what she'd said and how it sounded.
“TheangelGabriel,” Strand said, nodding wisely. “That's good. Try a mental.”
“No! Really. I'm not making this up.”
He nodded at the man behind her and she was half pushed half carried from the room, her arms jerked up so high behind her she had to bend over to relieve the painful pressure. She was shoved into a waiting squad car and the door slammed firmly behind her. Righting herself with an effort, she stared out the window, too stunned to completely assimilate what was happening as she watched the chaos outside.
Lights flashed in her eyes, blinding her. A moment later, a cop climbed into the driver's seat, started the car and pulled away.
What followed was the stuff of nightmares. Fortunately, Kylee was still in a state of shock when they arrived at the police station. Cocooned by that state of unreality, she was thoroughly confused, but unable to really grasp what was going on, or to feel any real fear. The only thing she did feel was a vast weariness that further impeded her ability to think clearly.
Like a zombie, she merely moved her feet when she was led from place to place, told to sit, told to stand, told to turn.
She wasn't allowed to bathe. The blood dripped for a while and then began to dry before they'd finished taking the pictures they wanted, asking her questions, inking her fingers. When she'd been booked, she was taken at last to get cleaned up. Bathing in a communal shower, and being searched, was almost more nightmarish than wearing the blood, though. She was allowed to collapse weakly on a hard bunk for a perhaps an hour and then dragged down to an interrogation room where she spent several more hours.
After repeating her story over and over, she fell asleep in the chair.
Nobody had bothered to ask if she was hurt until she'd finally had the chance to bathe off and Strand noticed she had new bruises blooming. He wasn't sympathetic. In fact, it was pretty clear that he wasn't happy to see evidence that she might be able to claim self defense.
They didn't bother to take pictures of her bruises.
The lawyer she'd asked for didn't arrive until the police had already interrogated her for hours. She was almost sorry to see the woman, though, because the first thing she did was demand to have a doctor see her and Kylee was already so near to dropping she had to struggle to keep from bursting into tears of sheer exhaustion.
She fell asleep on the examining table and was woken to the unpleasant discovery that someone was probing her vagina. Horror filled her when she realized they were collecting a rape kit. It didn't hit her until the nurse had left with the collected 'evidence' that it was proof that she hadn't been in the room alone--maybe.
More photos followed, this time for her defense.
It was horrible that she was downright grateful when she was finally thrown into a jail cell and locked in, but all she could think about was that now, at long last, she could rest. She didn't think she actually rested though. It was more a matter of passing beyond consciousness and when she was woken again, she felt nearly as tired as she had before she'd lain down.
The institutional atmosphere, being woken at all hours without any possibility of rest, and having virtually no privacy made the experience rather like being in a hospital--except worse.
Her attorney met with her sometime during the second endless day, informing her that her arraignment had been set for the following day and arrangements couldn't be made to get her out on bail until then. Afterwards, Kylee slept some, but spent most of her time huddled in one corner on her bunk just staring at a spot on the floor.
Mentally, she wasn't in a much better state than when she'd been arrested, but she saw that she was in deep trouble. Strand was trying to charge her with first degree murder, citing the fact that she'd come to the city specifically to catch Enrico for her sister's murder and, when that fell through, had lured him to her room to murder him in cold blood.
She didn't see how he could possibly believe that, but he claimed to, and he claimed to have evidence to support it--which was a hell of a note, all things considered. She hadn't done anything to the bastard and they were willing to manufacture evidence--which they would have to do since she was innocent--yet they knew Enrico had killed her sister and he could walk because they couldn't get evidence? Some frigging justice!
What she couldn't understand was why Gabriel had abandoned her in such a callous way.
Almost as if thinking about him had conjured him, he appeared beside her bunk. She stared at him in blank disbelief for several moments before she decided he really was there. “Gabriel?”
He was frowning, studying the cell with patent disgust. “Why are you here?”
She should've been furious with him for getting her into the mess she was in, but all she could think about at first was that she desperately needed to be held. Scooting off the bunk, she threw herself against him. To her relief, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against him. At first, she feared it was a prelude to sex--which she definitely wasn't in the mood for at the moment, but he seemed to sense she just needed to be held and he didn't seem to have a problem with it. He smoothed her hair and rubbed her back soothingly.
“Why have they brought you to this place, dearling?”
“They think I killed Enrico,” Kylee muttered against his chest, beginning to shake with reaction.
He pulled away from her to study her face. “Why would they believe that?”
Kylee's chin wobbled. “Because I was the only one there and I was holding his knife. Why did you leave me like that?”
He pulled her tightly against his body again. “To protect you.”
“It didn't work,” Kylee muttered.
Pulling away from her again, he tugged her behind him and settled on the bunk, dragging her onto his lap and cuddling her against his chest. “From my enemy, dearling,” he said patiently. “The one that I had fought that first night. Somehow he tracked me to you. I am not certain that he would have tried to harm you, but I could not be certain he would not when he found me with you. Even if that had not been his intention, you could have been harmed if we had fought there. I drew him off. When I had beaten him, I returned, but you were gone.”
Kylee shuddered. Abruptly, she recalled the 'man' she'd run into when she had gone to try to draw Enrico out, the one she had thought might be an Elumi like Gabriel.
The only thing she'd managed to do was to nearly get both herself and Gabriel killed, because she was certain, suddenly, that both Enrico and the Elumi had followed her back.
Stupid, stupid mistake! Why hadn't she considered that before?
She found that she didn't want to admit to Gabriel that it was all her fault they'd been attacked. Obviously, he had taken great pains when he had come to her to make certain hewasn'tfollowed.
“Somebody called the police, I guess--heard the commotion. I don't know. I fainted. They were everywhere when I woke up. And I was holding the knife that--” Kylee stopped abruptly and pulled away to examine him. “He stabbed you with that knife. I saw it!”
“Yes. He did.”
Kylee frowned, confused. “But--there's no sign--not at all! You're--immortal?”
He sighed gustily. “We are not immortal, but we are far more resilient than humans. We regenerate rapidly. Fighting with swords is much more than a matter of honor and skill for us. It is virtually the only way we can slay our adversaries, for if the head does not come away from the body, the body will heal itself.”
Kylee settled against him again, too relieved to discover he was unharmed to want to question the how or why of it, though the knowledge left her with an uncomfortable sense of separation from him.
“We're not the same at all, are we?” she said in a small voice, realizing that that meant they would not be together, could not. She hadn't considered it before because she hadn't thought it would come to matter to her. She had wanted to believe that she could enjoy the passion they shared and there would be no strings attached, no baggage to deal with later, but she realized it hadn't happened like that at all. “You've slain an enemy warrior. I guess that means you'll be allowed to go home?”
He didn't answer, not directly, which she took to be a yes. “I will not leave you in this place.”
Kylee swallowed with an effort, pushing away from him. “It's a law thing--a human thing. You wouldn't understand. I can't escape. I have to go through with this and try to clear myself. If I escaped, they'd hunt me forever.”
He shook his head. Shifting on the bunk until he could lie down, he pulled her down beside him so that they were facing one another. “I understand. I will fix this. Trust me,” he murmured leaning close to nibble at her lips teasingly.
Warmth flowed through her despite her certainty only minutes before that she had no desire for sex. She wrapped her arms around his neck, shifting closer, suddenly as needy of his caresses as she was of his passion.
Chapter Eight
Kylee was surprised when an officer took her from her cell to the interrogation room again. For the first time since she'd been arrested, however, she was not in shock, not scared half to death, and not exhausted. Gabriel had done far more than give her pleasure. He'd given her the comfort she needed to rest in mind and body and a sense of hope.
“My lawyer isn't here,” Kylee said the moment Strand strode into the room and took a seat.
“She's on the way.”
Kylee nodded and settled in her chair to wait.
“I'm considering offering you a deal.”
Kylee looked him over. “I didn't think cops made the deals. I thought that had to be somebody from the DA's office.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but the deal I'm offering is to influence the DA in your favor if you'll volunteer information.”
Kylee blinked. He thought she was stupid. Or maybe he thought she was still in the same totally chaotic state of mind she'd been in before and not able to think reasonably? “Let me see if I've got this straight. I give up my right to an attorney, tell you what you want to know, and you promise me absolutely nothing in return. Does that just about cover it?”
Strand's lips tightened. “I can make things a lot worse for you.”
“Not unless that includes tying me to a post and horse whipping me, because that place sucks and I think I've already got the worst stinking cell you could possibly have.”
“I could stick you in a cell with a girlfriend,” he growled.
Kylee narrowed her eyes at him. “I'm going to tell my lawyer you threatened me.”
“You can't prove it.”
“I don't have to. If I tell her and then you stick me in a cell with a lesbian, you will have proved it yourself.”
“I meant after you get to prison.”
“I don't think you have that kind of influence, and even if you did, you're assuming you can prove the case. I know you can't, because I didn't kill that bastard.”
“You were the only one in the room.”
“He still outweighed me by fifty or sixty pounds besides being a man and a hell of a lot stronger than I am! And I sure as hell couldn't cut his head off with a four inch knife blade--not unless I held him down and sawed it off with the thing. You know I didn't or you wouldn't be offering me anything.”
Strand shot to his feet. “Fine. I'll just send you back to your cell then. You can let me know when you're ready to cooperate.”
He left then. Kylee relaxed. She'd been sitting in the room almost thirty minutes before it dawned on her that he had no intention of sending her back to her cell. He was trying to 'sweat' her, trying to unnerve her by leaving her to worry and wonder what they were planning. He'd tried that tactic the day she'd been arrested. It hadn't worked then because she was in shock and too numb to feel much of anything. It certainly wasn't going to work now.
She would've gotten up and paced except that they'd left her handcuffed to the table.
Sighing, she tried to focus on something other than her discomfort.
Gabriel had been gone when she'd woken and she wondered if he'd gone back to Pearthen. He'd said he meant to see to it that she was freed before he left, but she supposed he'd realized that there was really nothing he could do but confess to the deed and that wasn't something anybody she knew would do, especially not for a woman they hardly knew.
She thought Gabriel would have anyway, except for his own laws. He would not worry about Earth laws, she didn't think. He could allow the cops to do as they pleased and then just vanish whenever it suited him. That would not be the case with his own people, though, and lord only knew what the penalty was if they caught him. Death, she suspected, which might have been what he'd meant by that remark before--certain death or salvation.
She supposed she should be absolutely furious about the whole thing, but somehow she couldn't find it in herself to be angry with him. She was glad Enrico was dead. He'd brutally murdered her sister and, despite her horror at watching him executed, she was fiercely glad Gabriel had done it, had given her and her sister justice when the law would not.
In her mind, she had killed Enrico herself a hundred times in a hundred ways. She hadn't gone through with it. She still hoped that she could prove that she hadn't and could go on with her life, but she had decided she was not going to regret it whatever happened. In her heart, she knew she would have killed Enrico if she could have.
She was going to miss Gabriel. She understood that he didn't really belong in her world and that he must miss his own world terribly, but accepting the way things were wasn't going to make it any easier.
She loved him. It didn't matter how unreasonable it might seem to anyone else. It was one of those things one just knew even when you hadn't felt anything quite like it before. It was a joy that just seemed to envelop your whole soul when you thought about them. It was breathless anticipation whenever you thought about seeing them again, hearing their voice, just being close to them.
She hadn't known him a full week, which even she thought was crazy, but the truth was she hadn't known him a full hour when it had hit her like a ton of bricks, maybe not even a minute. It was just there. One minute he was a stranger, an alien being, and the next she'd looked deeply into his eyes, felt his touch, and everything in her had welcomed him as if she'd known him forever.
She knew she was never going to feel that way again about another living soul. She thought that distressed her far more than anything about her situation with the cops.
Strand breezed back into the room, interrupting her thoughts. “I've decided to give you one more chance to cooperate. You claimed that someone else was in the room. Give us this guy's name and we'll see what we can do about reducing the charges against you.”
Kylee stared at the man in disbelief. Finally, she merely shrugged, though. What difference would it make anyway? They were never going to find Gabriel, and it wasn't like he would object to them knowing. “His name is Gabriel.”
“Don't start that guardian angel crap again!” Strand said in disgust. “We know you had sex just before Enrico was killed. We also know it wasn't Enrico and it was consensual….”
Kylee didn't even realize he'd stopped without finishing the sentence until he looked beyond her shoulder, his face going taut and pale with shock. Instinctively, she glanced around, too. “Gabriel! You came back!” she exclaimed, unable to keep the joy out of her voice.
His gaze flickered over her. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes and something else she couldn't quite define. “I gave you my word I would.”
Strand, Kylee saw when she turned to look at him again was looking as if he'd seen a ghost. “How did you…? What the hell are you doing in here?”
“I came to confess. I killed the man.”
Strand's jaw dropped. After a moment, he glanced around a little frantically and surged out of his seat with such force that the chair toppled over and rattled around the floor. Almost before the chair had hit the floor, someone began to pound on the door to the room which, for some mysterious reason wouldn't open.
“Why?” Strand demanded after a prolonged silence while he watched the fruitless efforts of his fellow officers to breech the door.
Gabriel knelt beside Kylee and touched the handcuffs, which promptly popped open. “Because he hurt my woman,” Gabriel answered simply, tapping Kylee's chin affectionately. He glanced at the detective. “And because he threatened the life of my woman and our child.”
As he rose to his full height once more, he 'displayed' his wings, arching them as he drew his sword from its scabbard along his back. “In the way of my people, I took justice for the murder of Kylee's sister, and protected my woman, as is my right.”
“Gabriel,” Kylee said, watching him uneasily. “You're not going to do anything, are you?”
Gabriel's gaze flickered to her, but before he could respond, the crash of shattering glass drew everyone's attention as the cops gave up on beating the door down and burst through the two way mirror instead.
“Drop the weapon! Now! Drop it!”
Gabriel tilted his head curiously at the three cops who had their pistols drawn and aimed directly at him. Grabbing Kylee by one arm, he thrust her behind him, otherwise ignoring the cops who continued to bellow, “Put it down!” “Get on the ground!” but made no attempt to come any closer.
He turned to look at Strand again. “You will release Kylee and make this go away. She did not kill the man.”
“Put the weapon down and we'll talk about it.”
“I will not negotiate.”
“Put it down or we'll shoot!”
Gabriel looked at the cop that had spoken and smiled, slowly.
Unnerved by the look, the cop jerked on the trigger, firing off a round. The moment he began shooting, the others began shooting as well. Strand dove for the floor. Kylee screamed. The sword moved. None of the officers saw it move and yet it was directly in the path of every bullet, and every bullet hit the sword and ricocheted into the walls around the interrogation room.
When they'd run out of bullets, they merely stared at the apparition, too stunned even to consider reloading or running.
“You can not imprison me. You can not bind me with your manacles. You can not kill me with your weapons. And I will not be bound by your laws when there is a higher law which gives me the right to protect my woman with deadly force if necessary. Drop the charges against Kylee--or I will return--and you will not be pleased to see me again.”
Sheathing his sword, he turned and lifted Kylee tightly against him. “This may discomfort you, dearling,” he murmured. He turned to study Strand a long moment, and then simply walked through the wall.
* * * *
Strand stared at the wall for some time before he finally approached it and touched it carefully. The wall felt warm, but it was solid. Glancing around the room in search of anything that looked out of place, he came up empty.
He still didn't believe what he thought he'd seen. It had to have been some cheesy magician's trick. He just had to figure out how it had been accomplished. When he turned at last to look at the officers standing on the other side of what had been an observation room, he saw that they looked as if they were coming out of a trance. The men looked at him uncomfortably, and then looked at each other.
“Did you see that?” one of the men, Jim Johnson, asked, awe in his voice.
The two men with him stared at him for a moment. “I didn't see anything. How about you, Clark?”
Clark shrugged. “I think I'll have a look at the tapes.”
All four men crowded close as the tape reached the point where Strand said he'd first noticed the man. “There!” one of the men said, stabbing a finger at the screen. “Did you see that flicker?”
Strand frowned. “It could've been the light.” His frown deepened when the screen filled with 'snow'. As one, they leaned closer. “I can't see him,” Strand said finally.
“Because he wasn't really there,” Johnson put in.
“I could go for the projection thing considering not one of us hit him a single time, but the bullets didn't just pass through. They ricocheted. Besides, how would a projected image pick Griffin out and waltz out with her? You can see her alright--right up to the point that he pushed her behind him,” Jim Riker, the other man involved in the shooting, said uneasily.
“Try the tape recording,” Clark suggested.
Disgust filled Strand when they'd listened to it. The tape was worse, if possible, than the video. He could hear his voice and Kylee Griffin's up until the point the man had entered the room, but even their voices were hard to distinguish afterwards. “Some kind of electrical interference. I'm going to get this down to the lab and see if they can clean it up any.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
Strand paused. “Hell, yes, I'm sure. Why wouldn't I be sure?”
“We shot the shit out of that room,” Clark pointed out.
“Exactly, which is why we need the tape,” Strand growled.
“Except that there's nothing on the fucking tape except us shooting the hell out of the room. They're going to think we were on something to be that freaked.”
Strand settled in his seat once more. “Whatarewe going to do?”
“Get rid of the tape, dig the slugs out of the wall and patch them.”
“We've got an escaped prisoner,” Strand pointed out.
“Which you were questioning when you weren't supposed to because she'd asked for a lawyer and you didn't call the lawyer,” Riker growled. “This is a hell of mess. We're all going to get canned over it.”
“There wasn't any evidence tying her to the murder,” Clark put in.
“She was a witness,” Strand growled, infuriated to think the killer was going to slip through his fingers. He despised being outsmarted--by anybody. The bastard had admitted straight out that he'd killed that scumball.
Therewasthe evidence that it had been man slaughter, not murder one, though. The girl was beat up pretty badly. Was it really worth ruining his career to get the guy on that kind of rap?
Sighing in disgust, he glanced at the other men. “I ain't having anything to do with a clean up unless everybody's in absolute agreement. I'd rather come clean now than have somebody turning on me down the road because their conscience is bothering them.”
Chapter Nine
The transition wasn't really unpleasant. There was a stinging sensation all over Kylee's body and then--nothing. The unnerving thing was what Gabriel did once they'd emerged from the building.
He launched skyward. One moment they were standing in the alley, the next the building was below them and Kylee's stomach with it. She blacked out again. That time, though, she thought it was from the G's Gabriel pulled when he shot straight up into the sky.
She roused when she felt them slowing, but full awareness didn't return until Gabriel at last stopped moving. When Kylee lifted her head and looked around, she discovered that they were in the room she'd rented. It was a disaster area. Yellow tape still covered the door. Everything in the room had been turned inside out as the police searched for the murder weapon, Kylee supposed.
“We can not stay here,” Gabriel said after surveying the damage. “I will take you to your home.”
Kylee had a very bad feeling that the cops would be right behind them, whatever Gabriel had said and done, but the mention of home was all it took to make her yearn for the peace and familiarity of her own home. She nodded. “Yes. Please take me home!”
She wasn't certain that she could explain 'as the crow flew' directions, but she did her best. In truth, she didn't really care where he took her so long as it was a very long way away from the city, the nightmare of Enrico's summary 'execution', jail and the police.
Gabriel surprised her, again. Without any notable difficulty, he took her directly to the city where she lived. Dropping lower and flying slower then, he circled until she identified the area--not an easy task for her at night and from such a viewpoint--and found her house.
She didn't have her keys--the police still had her belongings in custody--but that wasn't an impediment to Gabriel.
As much as she enjoyed being close to him, she was relieved when he set her down at last. Wilting weakly on her couch, she stared around at the room with a stranger's eyes as Gabriel paced the room, looking it over curiously. It seemed like forever since she had been here, when, in fact, it had been no more than a month.
She wondered if she would ever get used to it again, get back into the same, dull, boring routine that she'd had before she had left.
She wondered if she would get the chance.
Dismissing it, she turned her attention to Gabriel. “Are you--will you be going home now, too?” she asked finally.
He turned to look at her in surprise. “This is home.”
Kylee blinked, too stunned to think for a moment. “You're going to stay?”
He tilted his head to one side, studying her. Finally, he crossed the room and knelt beside her. His expression was piercing, fierce. “You are my woman,” he said finally. “You will bear my son. I will not stay here if you do not want that, but I can not leave my son.”
A knot rose in Kylee's throat. “How do you know I will bear your son?”
He placed his palm on her belly. “I know. He grows here.”
Somehow, even though she had had no reason to think it, she didn't doubt what he said. She felt like crying, not because she didn't want to be the mother of his child but because his knowledge of it and his fierce protectiveness towards his child had deprived her of knowing if he wanted her or if he only stayed because of the child.
He seemed to sense her doubts. Grasping her arms, he pulled her from the couch and straightened, holding her close. “I gave my son into your keeping because I love you, Kylee,” he said quietly. “Don't ever doubt that.”
Kylee pulled away to look at him. “Really?”
“Truly.”
A thrill of wonder surged through Kylee, a thrill that was like the best of homecomings--when one had wandered far and wide and finally found one's way home again. “I love you too. I was afraid….”
He smiled wryly. “You should not have doubted, not when I could not stay away.”
Kylee blushed. “I thought that was just … uh … the sex.”
He frowned at her. “Just?”
A smile curled the corners of her lips. “Not 'just', but just because of.”
Dragging her down on the couch, he spent a leisurely hour teaching her the difference between 'just', 'just because of', and love making.
Kylee was drifting lazily in the aftermath when doubts surfaced again.
“You're going to live as human?”
“You think I can not?”
Kylee smiled at him. “I think you can do anything--if that's what you want.”
“It is what I want.”
Another doubt surfaced after several moments of dreamily imagining their lives together. “Your blood is different than mine. What if--there's a problem with the baby?”
“There will be no problem,” he said without hesitation.
“You're sure?”
“Yes. Your blood will be the same as the infant.”
Kylee frowned. “You mean the infant's will be the same as mine?”
“Nay. You will--become much the same as I.”
Kylee's eyes widened. “Elumi?”
“Not precisely, but a hybrid of human and Elumi. The babe is half. It will make the changes necessary to its development.”
“Oh--does that mean--will my life span be more like yours?”
He caressed her cheek. “This is why I gave my child into your keeping, dearling, to keep you with me.”
The End