All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,85

dematerialized, the kiss landing on Tucker’s lips like a cool mist of fog.

With a groan of frustration, Tucker stomped into the house, Angel drooping dispiritedly after him.

HIS NOSE wouldn’t stop bleeding, dammit.

But Tucker decided to use that.

“Tucker, why won’t you just sit and put some ice on it?” Angel asked plaintively.

“Angel, come here,” Tucker said, scraping his finger along the threshold that led from the hallway to his room. “I need to know this doesn’t trap you too.”

“What are you doing?”

“I have a degree in ancient religions and defunct languages,” Tucker muttered. “Seriously. I know school was a long time ago, but I had to wait to get beaten up by a ghost to figure out how this works?” He turned toward Angel and gestured to the blood he’d scraped on the threshold as a protection spell. “Here, see if this bothers you.”

Angel frowned and moved his hand over the Enochian symbols that Tucker had drawn using the thick blood pouring down his face.

“No. I can feel the symbol tingle, but I’m fine with it. It bothers me that you’re bleeding. It bothers me that I couldn’t hold you, but this doesn’t bother me much at all.”

Tucker smiled at him wearily. “You know, I thought the fact that you could hold me was the plus side of the bleeding. I don’t get it myself.”

“You were happy,” Angel said glumly. “I think the blood means something else when your heart aches.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Tucker finished off the symbol and looked around the room. “If I pour some salt on the windowsill and put another one of these there, do you think that will do?”

“What exactly are you doing?”

“Thomas Conklin and I just beat the crap out of each other and he’s been dead for a hundred or so years. I would really like for him not to come into my room and slit my throat as I sleep!” Tucker’s ribs hurt from the ghost’s kidney punches, and his nose and head were one giant throb. At least the exhaustion was physical—mostly. Dealing with the dead was a lot harder on his energy levels than fucking the living; he was getting used to feeling like the cat’s breakfast.

Angel sat back on his haunches and put his hand in front of his mouth, clearly horrified.

“No,” he said. “Tucker, take the necklace off. He’ll kill you!”

“The necklace that means protection? I don’t think so. Better he beats the hell out of my body than takes it over!” Tucker finished the rune and stalked over to the window, blowing his bleeding nose into his hand to use as a painter’s palette.

“Gross,” Angel muttered, shrinking back.

“You are telling me.” Tucker didn’t even want to think about it. But that didn’t stop him from dabbing his finger in it and starting to draw. “Do you think I need to do this on the shower walls? Can he come through the walls now and attack me physically? Have all the rules of metaphysics just gone down the fucking crapper in this place?”

“I will watch over you when you bathe,” Angel said virtuously.

Tucker sputtered blood all over his shirt with his burst of laughter. “Glad to know that’s a hardship for you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I could be naked too, if that would make you more comfortable.”

Tucker stopped drawing for a moment and stared at him. Her.

Two green eyes in a triangular face, with lush lips, high cheekbones, and a sweet buttercream complexion, stared back. Angel had a riot of red curly hair piled on top of her head, drooping ringlets around her eyes and down her neck.

Tucker swallowed. Most of it was blood, and he sighed, going back to work on the rune so he could bathe, put his head back with some ice, and stop his damned nose from bleeding any more.

“Either form,” he muttered. “Either form would make watching me naked a really bad idea.” And then, dammit, he thought about that. “Can you be naked in either form?”

Angel appeared to think about it. She was wearing a scoop-necked T-shirt—sort of the feminine version of what Angel always wore—and jeans cut for generous hips and round thighs. Curiously, she pulled the neck of her T-shirt out and then fiddled with her bra.

“My nipples are the color of cinnamon,” she proclaimed, and Tucker groaned.

Forcing himself to concentrate, he finished the damned rune and stood, still cupping his hand.

“Is there anyplace else I can draw a rune?” Runes in blood—crude, basic, the oldest protection spell in