Read Online Death's Angel: A Novel of the Lost Angels by Heather Killough-Walden - Free Book Online Page A

core of who and what she really was.
    Here, at a woman’s absolute center, could be found her deepest and truest desires. Her needs. And it was those desires and needs that his kind both fed—and fed
from
.
    If he had been living by their code, he would have given the young woman pleasure, taken his own, and left her in the morning with no recollection of what had transpired the night before. That was the way it was
supposed
to happen.
    But there was a fury inside of Marcus that couldn’t be quelled by the rules that their king had set forth thousands of years ago. It burned in his veins and consumed his mind, and now here he was, standing in the bedroom of yet another unsuspecting victim.
    Marcus wondered how many women it would take. How long would it be before King Hesperos understood what Marcus was doing? Before the others figured out it was him and came after him?
    With a strange, sick feeling in his chest, he glanced at his reflection in the mirror above the girl’s dresser. He was uncommonly tall. But all of his kind were: tall, handsome, built. It felt like a brand—a bad joke. It was worthless, and he’d finally realized it.
    He turned from his reflection and dropped the covers at the foot of the girl’s bed, his once hazel eyes now glowing gold and green. He watched her for a moment and then smiled to himself. He raised his hand, palm down, to wave it over the girl’s body. As he did, she awoke.
    Her eyes came open fast, and her breath hitched. He could hear her heart pounding. He knew what she’d been thinking, what had been going on behind those pretty blue eyes. She was so young. The dream he’d given her had caused her nipples to harden against the fabric of her top and had moistened her panties between her legs. He knew damn well that she’d never experienced anything quite so . . .
delicious
.
    Slowly, the girl blinked against the darkness in her room, trying to adjust her vision. He sensed her disappointment at having awakened. It was natural; she’d been so
close
. But then she noticed the tall shadow beside the bed. Her vision adjusted a little more and she noticed it breathing. Then she stared up into his glowing eyes.
    In a split second they were both moving. Her back arched as she tried to sit up in the bed, her lips parting as she inhaled a scream.
    But his hand was over her mouth and his body was pressing hers to the bed before she could make a single sound. And then he was in her head again—and she went still beneath him, her eyes lost in his.
    “That’s it, little one,” he whispered, his words caressing her lips. “Remember what I did to you in your dream?” He smiled, and he knew that in the dim light of the room, it was a wicked smile. “Would you like me to do it again?”
    The air around him shifted a split second before the voice came from behind him. He had no time to prepare for the intrusion.
    “You’re finished here, Marcus,” said the voice. “Get off the bed and face us.”
    Marcus froze where he was positioned over what would have been his fifty-seventh victim. His muscles flexed, his mind quieted, and he felt a strange sense of completion. It was over. He’d been caught—and he had his answer as to how long it was going to take Hesperos to find him.
    With deliberation, he removed his hand from the girl’s mouth and moved off the bed to stand beside it. The girl watched him, her mind trapped between his control and hers, her body caught in a confused state of arousal and fear.
    Marcus gave her an enigmatic smile and turned, just as slowly, to face his would-be executioners.
    The two men who stood before him were dressed in street clothes. Nothing in the manner of their attire would have given them away as being from the higher echelons of Hesperos’s army. But Marcus knew better.
    “You’ll have to kill me, Aarix,” he said to the first of the two—a very tall man with jet-black hair and deep, dark eyes. “I’m done with you and our king. I’m done