Embraced (The Eternal Balance #2)(23)
Without Jax, I had no chance of fending off a demon—or whatever the hell this thing was—on my own. Unless I had a secret set of super powers—and I hadn’t seen any sign of them—I was in trouble. My only chance was to run. A head to head fight and I was going to get squashed like a bug.
I sighed and bent my head, making like I was about to surrender. Instead though, I stepped forward and brought my left elbow up, hard, like I’d seen Jax do. It connected with her jaw, and I cringed as pins and needles exploded beneath my skin and rocketed down my arm. She stumbled away, distracted, and I dashed off in the opposite direction. I got to the edge of the building, and just around the corner, before I ran into her again.
Literally.
Impossibly.
I backed up, staring into greedy eyes as she smiled. “Silly human. Outrunning us is impossible. Our minions are everywhere.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I said, taking another step back. My heart hammered an erratic rhythm inside my chest.
“Come with me and you won’t be harmed.”
“I don’t know you well enough to go home with you. Plus, you’re not really my type.” I swallowed and continued my slow retreat.
“We feared you would be difficult,” she said, utterly calm. It was her unruffled demeanor, more than the menacing tone, that rattled me. Like she was positive this would go her way. And why wouldn’t she be? I was, after all, only human.
I shrugged and kept inching backward. With a nervous laugh, I said, “Yeah? Well, making it easy on demons isn’t really my style.”
“Demon?” The woman laughed, a trilling echo that hurt my ears. “I’m no such filthy thing!”
A rush of air blew into my face and something large—no, huge—fluttered open and loomed above my head. “Wings,” I breathed. A massive expanse of jet black feathers filled the small space. “You’re—”
“An angel.” She tilted her head to the left, then to the right, studying me as though I was something alien. “And you are human. I do not understand why you align yourself with darkness. We are forces of good. We wish to eradicate the demons. To free the world.”
“That sounds noble and all, but Heckle said—”
The angel hissed and spat. “Heckle.” She said the name as if it were the vilest of curses. “He is nothing more than God’s pitiful attempt at clinging to something that was lost long ago. He felt it was his fault that Cain killed Abel. His design, flawed. But the world is meant to be flawed.” She stepped closer, fists clutched tight. The movement was aggressive. Menacing. “It is meant to be violent.”
I backed away. “That’s kind of a contradiction. A minute ago, you said you wanted to get rid of the demons. Now all of a sudden you’ve got a lust for violence? Someone needs to go back on their meds…”
“If there is no violence, then we have no place here. No purpose.” Her eyes blazed from black to fiery orange. “We are needed to maintain balance, not Heckle. It was our job. Then more and more Tainted walked the earth. He became more important. We, less so. Now he controls the power. He holds our fate in his hands. God’s favorite.” She spat again. “A wretched little cur.”
“Tell me how you really feel.” I inched another step into the alley.
“We were content to obey. That is our lot. But then you came. Your kind rarely survives to adulthood, yet you did. Somehow you’ve been activated and now, who pulls your strings and controls your power? The Master of Balance.”
“No one pulls my strings or controls me,” I said as calmly as possible. “And I’m just a girl. Nothing special.”
She laughed. A broken, distorted sound that was nothing close to being human. “A mortal, yes. But nothing special? Either you take me for a fool, or you are ignorant.” Another step closer. “Either way, you belong to us. You are Pure.”
“Pure?” Maybe if I played dumb, she’d let her guard down. Give me an advantage. “Honey, that ship sailed a long time ago.”
She shot forward, closing the distance between us, and screamed, a horrific sound that made the very air blur and brought me to my knees. Arms much stronger than they appeared wrapped around my waist, roughly hauling me to my feet as a rush of wind blew over me. What little sun shone into the alley was blotted out and the air seemed to thin. Breathing was harder, if not nearly impossible, and something soft and feathery brushed the side of my face.
But just as suddenly as it all began, it ended. The air rushed back, along with the light, and the angel fell away. Eyes wide, she collapsed to the ground, leaving a tall, dark figure with black-rimmed eyes towering behind. In his hands was the thing’s heart.
Jax dropped the gore-coated mass and stepped over the dead angel. He stalked forward and grabbed my face, yanking it to his. Our lips met, fierce and desperate, as the tips of his fingers curled around small sections of my hair. He pulled on my bottom lip, tongue skating across then slipping inside. For a blissful moment, the kiss made me forget about the hell hanging over our heads.
When he finally pulled away, I watched his eyes change. They went from solid black, to thinly lined, to their normal, beautiful gray. “Did it hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No. But it did escalate things.”
He looked from me to the angel. “How so?”