Angel of Darkness (The Fallen #1)(78)

Uh, yeah, it did.

“Unless you’re leaving tonight,” he said, “you need to get strong, and you need to get strong fast.”

His blood. She inhaled and caught his scent. She could hear the thunder of his blood. So close. Her tongue slipped over the edge of a fang. “Most Other ... they think it’s an insult to get bitten.” Especially the shifters. She’d heard those guys would rather die than get bit.

“I’m not most Other.” His gaze burned her. “Besides, I know there’s pleasure as well as pain in the bite—that’s a mix I rather like.”

He was offering. She needed the blood. Nicole pushed up onto her toes and pressed her lips against his throat.

If the coyotes were coming, and she didn’t doubt that part of his story, then she wouldn’t have time to find other prey. Not that she’d even been particularly good at finding prey to begin with.

Her fangs scraped his skin.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “Have a taste.”

Her teeth pressed—

“What the hell are you doing?”

She spun around, but didn’t go far. Sam had her clasped tightly to him, his arm a steel band around her waist.

Keenan thundered down the stairs, his eyes flashing black, then blue, as he raced toward them. “Get your hands off her! What are you thinking? You could kill her!”

Sam didn’t let her go. “Only if death was what I wanted.” She felt his shrug. “I don’t want death for her.”

“Let her go.”

“She’s holding me.”

Oh, crap, she was. Her hands were still on him. She dropped them instantly. “Keenan, it’s okay, I was just going to—”

“Have a bite,” Sam finished and Keenan jumped down to the landing. “After all, you left her weak, Fallen. Burned, broken, weak. What did you expect her to do?”

Keenan staggered to a stop less than a foot away. His hand lifted, then his fingers clenched into a fist. “Nicole, get away from him. You can’t trust him. He’ll turn on you in an instant.”

Like that was something she didn’t know.

“You want her, then take her.” Sam’s voice was mocking. “Touch her, take her, if you think you’re strong enough.”

Oh, so that was what this was about. Nicole jabbed out with her elbow, as hard as she could. Sam’s grip loosened, just a bit, and she sprang away from him. She didn’t hurry toward Keenan, but rather backed away from them both. “She doesn’t need taking by anyone,” Nicole said clearly.

But the two fallen angels were too busy glaring at each other to listen to her.

“Don’t ever touch her again,” Keenan ordered.

“I don’t touch her ... you don’t touch her ... that’s gonna be one lonely vampire.”

Keenan growled.

“Just back off,” she snapped right back at him. “You’re the one who told me to leave, remember?”

His head inclined in a tight nod.

“Dammit, she needs blood.” Sam threw his hands into the air. “Look at her. Look.”

Keenan’s gaze darted to her. She saw the hunger in his eyes. The need. The fear.

“If you’re not gonna help her, I will.” Sam reached for her.

“No,” Nicole said, her voice firm. She’d been planning to pull back even before Keenan came flying down those stairs. “I’ll find another source.”

Keenan’s jaw tightened and she caught the flash of fury in his gaze.

So did Sam. “Don’t like that, do you? Makes you jealous.” His voice lowered. “Those damn emotions. They’re real bitches, aren’t they?”

Keenan ignored him. “I won’t kill you,” he told her.

Sam laughed. “Isn’t that what this whole mess has always been about? You ... killing her.”

Keenan didn’t glance back at him. “If you leave now, you’ll have a good headstart, sweet. I’ll make sure the coyotes don’t follow you.”

“Because it’s okay to kill them,” Sam said, “but not her?”

Keenan’s eyes narrowed. “Go, Nicole.”

The guy was really throwing her out the door. Fine. She spun away, took two steps and locked her fingers around the doorknob.

“Thank you.”

His whisper stopped her cold. “For what? Leaving you?” So that he’d have to fight a vicious battle without her?

But Keenan didn’t say anything else. Damn him. Nicole looked over her shoulder, glaring. “For what?”

“Life.” He inclined his head. “Now I understand why you fought so hard.”

No, no, he was not bringing that up to her—

“Some things are worth fighting for.”

He turned away and began to march back up the stairs.

“He can’t kill you.” Intensity hardened Sam’s voice.

Nicole’s tongue swiped over her lips even as her fingers tightened around that doorknob. “Th-that’s not what Az said.”

“Az is a dick.”

So was he. “Az said that if ... if Keenan killed me ...” And Keenan was halfway up the stairs now. His shoulders up. His head high. Couldn’t he have looked a little depressed? “Az said if Keenan killed me, he could go back.”