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“It can’t be.” The angel drops his pack. He looks defeated, his shine dulled. Nur refuses to pity him.
“Staying apart will be painful until the bond is stronger,” he says instead.
“I know how a bond works.” The angel slumps to the ground and rubs his face. “If I kill you, the shock might send me into state of madness.”
Nur’s gaze drifts. He’s not hurt by the angel’s obvious disgust. Of course not. He didn’t ask for a bond either.
“A bond can be broken,” the angel says. “All we have to do is push through the pain.”
Nur’s eyes fall on the chimera carcass, which is beginning to rot as the creature’s fragile bond with the Earthen realm disintegrates. The wastes are full of life if you know where to look—hungry critters crawl over the carcass, eager to fill their bellies before the tainted flesh melts away. He’s been too sick to appreciate the cycle of life. A bug pinches off a piece of flesh and carries it down the mountain of the carcass.
“Say something!”
He shrugs. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Don’t you want to break the bond?” the angel demands. Then he snorts. “Of course, being bonded to someone like me is probably a step up in the world.”
Nur exercises self restraint and doesn’t roll his eyes. “I’m not eager to suffer for no reason.”
“Surely you can see that staying bonded is madness. Or was that your plan all along?” Arsene sucks in a breath. “It was, wasn’t it? You planned to trap me with this—farce!”
His temper flares. “How could I have? I was out of my mind.”Arrogant ass!
“I can’t believe it. I was meant to have a mate, a real vergis.” The angel leaps to his feet. “You could have destroyed my mission, and now you’ve taken the only thing I care about?—”
“I’ve done nothing except save your hide,” Nur snaps. The angel’s hysteria is getting to him in spite of himself.
The angel stops in his tracks. “Unless we break the bond, I won’t be able to continue my mission. I can’t have you lurking in our trail and killing humans.”
“That isn’t my problem.”
“It most certainly is.” He folds his arms across his broad chest. “Either I stuff you in a pit trap and the bond breaks slowly and painfully?—”
“Leaving me to die?—”
“—Oryou help me protect the caravan. Your foul Hellform is as powerful as any sentinel warrior.” Satisfaction gleams in those jewel-like eyes. “If you’re a demon-eater, surely you’ll have no problem killing the enemies that stalk the human camp.”
Help the humans?
Nur has no enmity with humans—neither does he care one bit about their fate. But is helping the insufferable angel any better than being stuck in a trap until the bond breaks and ends his miserable existence once and for all?
“What do I get out of it?”
“You get to live.”
Nur lurches to his feet, relishing the angel’s minuscule flinch. Arsene’s scent is delightful this close, heady and rich. His breath on Nur’s cheek is a sweet perfume, enfolding him in warmth. The only thing better would be his pulse against Nur’sfingers, his firmness under Nur’s palm. He’s delectable—and Nur despises him already.
“My life isn’t worth grovelling for,” he bites out. “So what do I get? I’ll tell you what I want. Your soul. Close your eyes at night, and I’ll come into your dreams and take a sip. You won’t even notice.”
Those plush lips twist into a grimace. “Anything but that.”
Nur releases him with a shake. “Then I refuse.”
He turns on his heel.
“Wait! Wait. Fine,” the angel calls out a moment later. “I accept your terms. But these are mine. I want you to take half the watch. You won’t touch the humans—notever, or I’ll kill you and be done. Every three days I’ll feed you a few drops of blood, enough to keep you from turning on them. When my mission is over, so is our agreement.”
“Then we have a deal.” It’s a better bargain than he could have hoped for. Nur spits in his hand and holds it out. The angel gives it a look of horrified disdain, but finally he grasps Nur’s hand. His grip is warm and solid.
