Avenging Angel (The Fallen #4)(54)

“Not now, man,” Cody snapped at him and his brother tried to pull Marna away.

Only Tanner wasn’t letting her go.

The panther inside him, injured, weak, stirred at the thought. Why should he have to let her go? He’d just found her.

Something sliced into his chest. He barely felt the pain.

“Just got to get it . . . out.” Cody’s voice. Worried. Desperate.

But Tanner kept kissing Marna. He needed her to understand. In this world, she was the one thing he wanted.

The one thing that he’d kill to keep.

His claws began to stretch even more. The slicing in his chest dug deeper. Marna pulled back as she broke the kiss.

Tanner’s eyes opened. Bastion stood just beyond Marna’s shoulder. Watching. Waiting. Did this * really have to be the one to come for him? Figured.

“Got it!” And what was Cody sounding so freaking happy about?

But then the fierce pressure in his chest eased. He glanced at Cody and saw the bloody knife blade in his brother’s hand. “Now just stay alive,” Cody told him, voice grim and haggard—probably because his throat was still damaged, “until I can get you stitched back up.”

He wished he could but . . .

Death is coming for me. No, Death was right there waiting. Tanner’s gaze returned to Marna. Her cheeks were wet. Crying? Over him? He wasn’t worth an angel’s tears. Never had been. She should know that. She should also know . . .

“You were the best . . . thing . . . I ever had.” The only thing, other than his brother, that had ever mattered.

So it seemed only right that she’d be the last vision he saw on this earth. The flames in hell would never burn her memory from him.

Let ’em f*cking try.

“Time to go,” Bastion said, his voice rumbling like thunder.

Tanner’s eyelids began to sag.

Kill to keep her . . .

The man might be fading, but the beast was still struggling inside of him. Fighting. Clawing. Desperate to reach out to the one woman he’d wanted to claim as—

Mate.





Jonathan Pardue raced into the swamp, his legs running as fast as they could. Behind him, a fire crew battled the blaze, a blaze that had destroyed the house of Tanner’s brother, Cody.

It had taken him too long to track Tanner to this place. Too long to break free of those cuffs and haul ass out of the city.

Now, he just might be too late.

All of his plans. All his work.

Too late?

Hell, no. Things couldn’t end like this. “Tanner!” Jonathan shouted his partner’s name, but heard nothing. What he wouldn’t give to have a shifter’s sense of hearing or smell right then.

Where are you?

Tanner had taken the angel with him. She had to hate the swamp. If the stories about her fall were true—stories he’d forced supernaturals to tell him in the last few days—then she would have good cause to avoid the swamp.

Only she was out there now. With Tanner. With Cody?

More cops would be coming soon. They’d bring dogs. They’d search every inch of the area. Jonathan had to find Tanner before the others did.

But . . . where? “Tanner!” Darkness was coming, sweeping over the area in shades of muted red as the sun began to sink into the sky. It looked like damn blood in the sky.

He rushed ahead. Turned to the left. The right. Saw only more twisting trees with heavy moss hanging from their branches.

Swearing, he spun around. He’d go back. He could retrace his footsteps, check to the left, and—

And his gaze fell on footprints on the ground. He yanked out his flashlight. Shone the faint glow on those small impressions.

Hell, yes.

His left hand clamped tight around the flashlight, and his right hand reached for his gun.





Time to go. The words seemed to freeze Marna’s blood. She grabbed for Tanner, pulling him close even as she turned on Bastion with a fury she’d never felt before. “No!”

But Bastion just stood there, face cold and hard and stoic, with his wings pulled low near his body. “Your shifter’s time is up. His body’s dying.”

She shook her head, frantic. He couldn’t leave her yet.

“Didn’t you see what he did?” Bastion took a step closer.

Cody kept working on his brother’s chest. Swearing and muttering, apparently oblivious to the angel who waited just steps away. An angel who, unlike her, could truly kill with a touch.

“He protected me,” Marna said, lifting her chin. He was always protecting her.

Cody glanced up at her, brows pulling together. “Yeah, that’s just great. My brother’s a hero, but right now we need to—”

“You can’t take him!” Now she sounded desperate, like others before her—so many others over the centuries. She’d never understood their rage and helplessness.

She did now.

Cody blinked. Then his eyes widened, and he followed her gaze over his shoulder. “One of ’em . . . one of the angels is here?”

She barely nodded. “Work faster,” she whispered to him. Could Cody really not see the angel? He wasn’t a pureblood demon, so maybe he couldn’t see Bastion.

Or maybe he could.

Bastion’s lips tightened. “There is no delaying, no deals, no borrowing. There is only death. You know this.”