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“Please,” he whispered. “Have mercy.”
“Tell me…” I stared down at him as I wasn’t going to get down to his level. “What are you willing to do to live?”
“Anything, anything. Please, don’t kill me.”
I pressed my hand to his forehead, and he closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face. He wasn’t as dark as Tyson inside, but he was far from pure. I doubted he’d reform of his own goodwill, but I guess being a better man out of fear of the consequences was better than not trying at all. I grabbed the front of his t-shirt and dragged him to his feet, lifting until he was balancing on his toes.
This isn’t how I’d normally have dealt with people like this.
But Evie, she released the animal within me.
“I’ll be watching all the time. Everywhere you go, everything you do. When I let you go, you leave this building, you leave this city, and you find some way to live your life to help others.” He whimpered again when I slid my hand until it was gripping his throat. “For if you don’t, Iwillfind you.”
He nodded as best he could against my grip, and after I dropped him to the floor, he scrambled to his feet, doing a few awkward bows before backing out the doorway and disappearing down the stairs.
I turned back to Tyson. He was on his knees, still cradling his shoulder, his fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife. I watched him with my arms folded over my chest. He’d destroy the ligaments in his shoulder if he pulled it out—I had put it in on an angle.
Evidently he didn’t know that, and when he tugged it from his shoulder, he cried out in pain again, a pathetic broken shout ending in a sob.
I almost laughed again.
Then I realized another human trait had rubbed off on me. An undesirable trait I should’ve known better than to let it get the best of me.
Arrogance.
I was so sure I had the upper hand that when Tyson stumbled to his feet and lunged for Evie, I was too slow to react, too busy enjoying the moment of him destroying the use of one of his arms.
But he only needed one arm to hold the knife to her throat.
“Back the fuck off, man, or I’ll bleed her out in front of you.”
Evie was watching me, her face bruised and blood dripping from her lips, but he hadn’t cut her. Her eyes were glazed. I wondered how much she’d had to drink and if it had helped numb the pain he had put her through.
But then I realized that while I could smell the alcohol, the glaze of her eyes wasn’t because she was tipsy or drunk.
They were tears.
Her eyes were on mine, and although I’m sure she had taken in my appearance, me as I am, wings and all, all she was doing was watching my eyes. I felt them slide back into blue as I looked at her, and it was only then tears shifted from a glaze to falling down her cheeks in steady streams. Perhaps she recognized the man beyond the angel, the man she had been with, made love with, and ran her nails down his back.
The woman I needed and wanted and would protect forevermore never stopped looking at my eyes.
She didn’t seem panicked, and for that, I was thankful.
She trusted me to save her.
EVIE
When I saw him, I didn’t even feel the tip of the blade Tyson held against my throat push into my skin.
Zaqiel.
He was glorious.
That body, those eyes, thosewings.
Angels don’t do this,he had said.
How on Earth was I supposed to know he meant it literally?
