Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) - By Michelle Rowen Page 0,99

and that his soul was bound for Hell...but—” he rubbed a hand over his mouth and looked away from me “—I don’t know why I couldn’t stop myself from killing the one person who ever gave a damn about me.”

I stared at him. This was the confirmation I’d been looking for. “You can’t remember why you did it? Seriously?”

He gave me a wry look. “It doesn’t excuse what I did.”

“But in a way it does. It tells me you weren’t yourself at the time.”

“But I still did it. Nobody else. You saw that yourself.”

I tried to figure it out, but failed miserably. “No matter what you might have done, you’re still an angel. Your soul was not dark and heavy enough to become a demon, so as horrible as it was, it must have been the right thing to do at the time. You told me yourself—killing Kraven and sending him to Hell is what helped you become an angel. There has to be a reason for that.”

“There was.” He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “There was somebody on my side. Somebody who put in a good word for me—somebody who also sent people to Hell whenever he got the chance.”

“Who?”

He searched my face as if waiting for me to recoil from him with disgust and horror over all of this. But I’d been in training lately to handle a lot of bizarre stuff. I could handle more. I was like a pack mule for supernatural craziness now.

“My father,” he finally said.

I blinked with surprise. “Your father?”

He nodded slowly. “Just like your birth mother—my father was an angel. That got me a chance when otherwise I know I would have been damned.”

“Your father was a—an angel.” Maybe this pack mule’s back wasn’t as strong as I originally thought.

“Yeah. Let’s just say, my mother had widely differing tastes when it came to men.” He shook his head, his expression shuttering as if he’d realized he’d said far too much. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”

I needed more time, more information. But he’d put an end to it. Quite honestly, I think this was the most I’d ever gotten out of him. While mind-blowing, I considered it serious progress.

We caught up with Cassandra, and together we headed back to my house. Once there, it felt very strange to have Bishop come in through the front door. It seemed like such a mundane thing for someone like him to do.

Entrances through bedroom windows, however...

“I’m starving,” Cassandra said immediately. She hadn’t said much on the way here, keeping quiet and looking pale. Now that her secret was out, her real mission, I had no idea what was going on in her head. When I’d met her eyes to try to find out more by reading her mind, I’d found that her walls were up—solid and impenetrable.

She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Bishop and me alone.

“Are we going to the party tonight?” I asked.

“No. The others have it under surveillance. We’ll go back to Ambrosia and look for Stephen. Someone there has to know where he is.”

His gaze moved over everything in the foyer, from the throw rug, to the coatrack, to the framed pictures of me and my mom.

“Pretty boring stuff,” I said, embarrassed by the level of mundane he was able to witness in such a small space.

His attention moved to me. “Hardly. I find everything here...very interesting.”

My face felt warm. His soul was hard to ignore right now, as was my hunger, but I hoped I had a decent lock on it.

The calm before the storm, I thought. Gets better before it gets worse.

Such a pessimist.

No, a realist. There was a big difference.

“Earlier, you said that you didn’t want to let me out of your sight,” I said cautiously.

He didn’t take his eyes off me for a moment. “That’s exactly what I said.”

“There might be a slight problem with that plan.”

“What?”

I took my coat off and threw it on the coatrack like I’d done hundreds of times before. “I need to take a shower.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Well, make it a fast one and I won’t have to check on you.”

“Fastest ever.” I turned away from him before he could see me blush and rushed up the stairs to the second floor.

Before I hopped in the shower I quickly checked voice mail. There was a message from my mom about how much she was enjoying her vacation. Another one from Kelly confirming the new location for Noah’s Halloween party