Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
She rubbed at her chest. “But you have some kind of control over how you affect people, right? I mean, I never feel wrathful around you.”
“It doesn’t appear to work on the people I care about, such as you and my brothers. Everyone else? I can attempt to lessen the impact, but it doesn’t work for long.”
Which totally explained why he never spent much time around outsiders—even Mia. “Why did your brothers fall with you?”
“It was a show of loyalty. I led their branch of the holy host. I’d trained them, watched out for them, fought at their side, saved their asses more times than they could count. They didn’t want to answer to a new archangel, and they didn’t feel they could trust the rest of the Seven after what they did to me.”
She looked toward the clubhouse. “They’re not normal angels, are they?” She’d sensed that much.
“My inner circle—Dice, Jester, Razor, Omen, Darko, and Ghost … People call them ‘the Burning Ones’.”
She froze. “Seraphim.” Well, shit.
“Seraphim, the most powerful and dangerous of the angels. The rest of my brothers are dominions. Slightly less powerful but still dangerous.”
She swiped a hand down her face. The shocks kept piling up. His club … It was far more deadly than she ever could have imagined. If the demon world as a whole understood that, she was quite sure the club would be massacred. Her own entity was a little unnerved by all this, to be truthful. And not much daunted it in general.
“No wonder you guard all your secrets so tightly,” she said. “I’m surprised you made alliances with demons. Surely it would be safer to keep to yourselves.”
“It would have. But I needed to gain a foothold in your world. I needed access to the Underground so I could watch over you there and be certain you were safe. And I knew I had a better chance of situating myself in your life if you thought some of your kind trusted me.”
“Cunning.”
Viper didn’t take offence, seeing mirth bloom in her gaze. Well, demons didn’t generally have an issue with ‘cunning’. They were incredibly devious themselves and respected such a quality in others. “Yes, but necessary.”
She carved a hand through her hair, looking the epitome of dazed. “Anymore bombshells you need to drop?”
“None.” He took her wrist and teleported her back to his bedroom. “Well, maybe one. Though it isn’t bad or huge.” Viper peeled up his tee and gestured at the ink above his heart. “You asked me what these writings say.”
Her gaze dipped to the strange symbols.
“It’s two words: Only her.” He let his t-shirt drop. “You, Ella. No one else found their way under my skin. Just you.”
She scratched at her scalp, clearly overwhelmed. “That’s … I don’t know what to say.”
He didn’t need her to say anything. All he wanted was for her to not walk out. She’d promised to stay until he’d relayed everything. He’d made it clear there was nothing else to tell her, so this was the point where she could declare her intention to leave. But she hadn’t. More, there were thousands of queries in her eyes.
Queries were good. They might mean she’d hang around longer. He’d been deliberately vague about certain aspects of his story, hoping it would spark her to linger—even if only to ask for elaborations.
As she’d said, cunning.
“You say you settled in Vegas for me,” she began, “but you’ve been here a while. You didn’t approach me or anything.”
“I couldn’t. I knew the Uppers would send slayers after me. They did. The entire time I spent fending them off, I established my club here in Vegas. And I watched you from afar.”
“Hence why you where there when I interfered in the mugging,” she realized.
“Yes. I couldn’t explain that before now but, if you think back, I didn’t lie to you when I spoke of why I was close by. I simply kept some details to myself.”
She flicked up a That makes it okay, does it? brow but then sniffed. “The pool hall, the dive bar … you bought those because I frequented them, didn’t you?”
“And your apartment complex.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God. You’re the new mystery owner who came along and fixed the place up.”
“I wanted to better its conditions and improve its security, so it fucking galled me when the bastard writing you notes still managed to get inside.” Viper could have warded it against teleportation, but it would have prevented any demonic residents with such an ability from gaining entrance that way. “In buying the place, I pretty much fucked up.”
Her brows dipped. “Fucked up?”
“As the Everleigh-note has proven, only someone who knows exactly who you are to me could be sending the notes. That means someone from the upper realm has been watching me. Someone who figured out by my business transactions that I had a vested interest in you.”