Avenging Angel (The Fallen #4)(61)

Frowning, Tanner asked, “What are you talking about?”

But she knew now, and her heart was starting to race. “All of the paranormals coming after me . . . they all know I can’t kill with a touch.”

A grim nod. “They think you’re an easy target.”

She wasn’t going to be. “One of them must have been in that bar when I went after Michael and Beau that night. Someone saw me try to kill them—and fail.” She shoved back her hair. “That someone could be the same person setting me up for these kills.”

His eyes narrowed. “Or he could just be the prick who’s setting you up to get eaten by the supernaturals in town.” He headed for the door. “Either way, we’re finding him.”

Yes, yes, they were. Marna hurried after him. They rushed down the stairs and entered the small den just in time to see Cody stroll into the room, a bloody cloth held to his throat. He looked first at Tanner, then her, then back to Tanner. One dark brow rose. “Done are we? No more screaming and shouting? Gotta say, I’m impressed, but for a minute there, I was afraid the ceiling would fall on—”

Tanner sprang at him. He leapt across the room and shoved his brother against the wall. “Only living family or not, you don’t talk about her that way.”

Cody didn’t look particularly intimidated. He knocked his brother back. “I wasn’t talking about her. I was . . . just talking about how . . . enthusiastic you seemed.”

Tanner slugged him while Marna felt her cheeks burn.

But Cody just laughed.

We like the pain and the violence.

She crept down the last few stairs and rubbed her arms. Tanner was wrong. Yes, she’d been the one to originally think he was just like Brandt, but that had been before. Everything was different now.

No, not everything. Me.

Tanner eased away from his brother. “Now that we aren’t fighting for our lives, you wanna tell me just what that hell in the swamp was all about? Why’d you burn your own place down?”

Cody rubbed his jaw. “I knew Jillian was coming after me.”

“How?” Tanner asked. “And why the hell didn’t you tell me? If you knew I was working for a dirty cop, you should have passed that critical intel along.”

Marna’s fingers pressed against the wooden banister as she waited for Cody’s response.

“Jillian knew I’d helped you to make her”—a quick finger jab toward Marna—“disappear. The word I got was that Jillian was gonna force me to tell her where Marna had gone.”

Interesting. It seemed the captain had learned a lot about her, very, very fast.

But Tanner shook his head. “You’re lying,” Tanner said, sounding surprised. “To me.”

Cody swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Had he flinched? Yes, it looked like he had. Now his eyes were darting nervously around the room. Liar, liar.

Marna cocked her head to the side and wondered how Tanner had known. Lies. What would it be like to tell them? Some people could lie so easily, but for others, you could always read the lies on their faces.

At that moment, Cody’s lie was clear to see.

“Are you using again?” Tanner demanded.

Using? Suspicion snaked through her, and that suspicion was confirmed when Cody started to sweat.

He told Tanner, “No. I don’t do that. Haven’t in years.”

She realized he was talking about drugs. After all, she knew all about the addictive mix that was demons and drugs. Many demons used the drugs to dampen their darker impulses but only learned, too late, that the drugs made them worse.

And no one could grow addicted as fast as a demon.

“You’re keeping secrets,” Tanner said, with a sad shake of his head. “Those will come back to bite you in the ass.”

Cody stalked a few feet away from him. The bloody cloth had fallen to the floor. His throat had healed, mostly. Jaw clenched, he met Tanner’s gaze. “I . . . sold angel blood.”

Now Marna was the one to leap forward. “You did what?”

He wet his lips and stared at the floor before seeming to force his stare to rise. “A few months ago, when I had to run that transfusion from Azrael . . .”

Marna’s knees locked at the name. Azrael was one of the most powerful angels of death she’d ever met. Well, he had been that way, until his fall. Then he’d become something even more dangerous.

Not like me. Everyone knew to stay away from Azrael, or he’d obliterate them.

Why couldn’t she just have some of that power? The torching was nice, but she needed more magic in order to keep breathing.

“Azrael gave his blood in order to save his human.” Tanner’s voice was flat. “I was there, it was a fast transfusion. There was no choice.”

Azrael’s human. The female that Brandt had claimed as his mate. Only Az had taken her from him, and Az had been the one to send Brandt to hell.

She owed the powerful Fallen for that. It should have been my kill.

Az had just beaten her to the punch.

“There was some . . . extra blood.” Now shame coated Cody’s words. “I knew how powerful it was, and I couldn’t just destroy it.”

So he’d started selling the blood of her kind? “Do you know what Azrael will do to you,” Marna asked quietly, “when he realizes what you’ve done?”