“We should leave,” she told him. It wasn’t safe when they were both so distracted.
“Oh, you must stay.” Kayley clutched her arm and squeezed. “I insist.”
The malevolent glee in her voice struck hard. For that heartbeat, she hated her sister and everything she’d created.
The hell with that. “We’re going,” she said at the same time Maccus spoke.
“We’ll wait.” His words had a finality to them. She knew he’d made up his mind.
“Not here.” Maybe he wouldn’t leave, but she could get him away from this horrible painting.
“No,” he agreed. “Not here.”
She hooked her arm through his and all but dragged him back to the front room. Every eye in the place seemed to be on them. Or maybe she was just being paranoid. Let them look. None of them had any idea of the battle being fought in their midst.
But she did.
If Maccus went on a rampage, he’d likely kill everyone here. And that might well be what pushed him over the edge and into darkness for good.
No way was she letting that happen.
…
Maccus’s every cell pulsed with simmering rage that threatened to erupt into a fury the likes of which the world had never witnessed.
The shadows reached for him, calling to him to join them once and for all. It would be so easy.
He’d fallen once before. Why not do it again? Only this time it would be his choice.
The urge to spill blood beat inside him. A craving for justice. A thirst for retribution.
But if the darkness gained free rein, it wouldn’t only be the guilty who paid.
He wasn’t alone. For the first time, there was someone with him, someone urging him away from the edge of oblivion.
He couldn’t resist her.
It was a woman whose name he couldn’t remember with his rage clouding all else. But it didn’t matter. He could taste her fear and desperation on his lips and in his mouth. He wanted to gobble it up, greedy for it all.
But even stronger was a sense of caring and concern. It drew him back. Enabled him to regain control.
It had been thousands of years since he’d come so close to losing himself to the unending fury that lived inside him.
She had drawn him back.
“Are you okay?” Her words and the tone of her voice grounded him in the present. The painting was the past. He’d survived his time in Hell and come out stronger on the other side.
Lucifer feared him. Gabriel feared him.
And so they should.
They’d created the monster he’d become. The only person who had a chance of containing him was the woman beside him, this former human turned demon bounty hunter.
It was almost laughable.
His neck was stiff, his limbs the same. Taking a deep breath, he sank fully back into the present, expanding his awareness. “Yes.”
Concern clouded her beautiful green eyes. “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
Her sincerity was a balm to his ragged soul. “It’s only the truth.” And that’s what had hurt the most. It had portrayed his weakness, his vulnerability, his inability to save himself. He was no longer any of those things. Now he was strong and ruthless.
Long after his enemies were nothing but dust, he would still be alive.
That belief was what had sustained him since the fall. He saw no reason to change it now.
“Do we stay here or wait outside?” She rubbed her hand up and down his arm. It was too bad he was wearing a jacket and couldn’t feel her skin against his. Probably for the best, too.
He’d allowed himself to get distracted. That couldn’t happen again.
“We stay.”
Chapter Sixteen
Maccus had always been remote, but now it was as though he’d pulled back into a fortified castle perched on a remote island, surrounded by a moat full of alligators. He might as well have barbed wire strung around him with a no