time. And thanked Cameron. And hugged my grandparents. And kissed Brooke and Glitch. Surely they knew how I felt about them. Surely they would understand.
“Thanks for running, by the way.” He brushed some snow off his shoulder. “Couldn’t kill a prophet in the church. Hallowed ground and all. Bad for the karma.”
I turned toward him, tears blurring my vision and freezing on my skin.
“By all rights, I should be able to just kill you right here and now. I’m a descendant. I’m stronger than most humans. Faster.”
I inched away from the edge of the canyon. If he was going to kill me, he was not going to do it by throwing me off a cliff. He would have to do it with his own hands. He would have to work for it.
He stepped forward and captured my jaw in a firm grip that had pain shooting through it. “I should just be able to break that scrawny neck of yours. To reach into your chest and rip out your heart.” He closed the distance between us until his mouth was almost touching mine. “And yet every single time we try to kill you, you survive for one reason or another. So this time, I brought help.”
He nodded over his shoulder, indicating the others who had come up behind him. Over a dozen boys, some no older than me, and others who looked well over twenty, stood scattered around us. All of them tall. All of them not quite right, disproportioned somehow. Their gazes were both threatening and blank. White fog drifted from their mouths like animals as they watched. But that wasn’t the scary part. The scary part was what they were carrying. Each held a weapon. A machete here. An axe there. Blades so sharp, the sunlight reflected off the edges.
“Never send a human to do a nephilim’s work.” Vincent’s expression changed, turned sadistic. “This time, there’ll be no coming back.”
With a shove that had me seeing stars, he pushed me to the ground.
I grabbed my throat, coughing and choking, and looked up at him. “Why?”
“Because you will be chopped into little pieces,” he said, looking at me like I was an imbecile. “There’s really no coming back from that.”
“No, why do you want this war?” I asked between coughs. “What does it have to do with you?”
“Nothing. It has to do with humans and their arrogance and angels and their supremacy. We’re the bastards of two worlds. Outcasts. Unable to enter heaven because of our ancestry. Discriminated against by humans because we’re different.”
“What does that have to do with the war? Why would you want demons to rule the earth?”
“We don’t necessarily. We just think they deserve a fighting chance. Because of you, humans have an unfair advantage. By eliminating you, we’re evening out the odds. Leveling the playing field, if you will.”
I scooted back, trying to get out from under him, so I was a little surprised when I heard a thud and he went flying back to slam into a tree, the impact so hard, his body broke under the pressure.
I gasped and looked up into the smiling face of an angel. Literally.
Jared was standing over me, positioned so that from my vantage, he looked upside down. He grinned. “You get into more trouble when I’m not around,” he said.
With a cry of delight and relief, I scrambled to my feet and flung myself into his arms. He wrapped them tight, buried his face in my hair. Which must look horrid. He felt like heaven with central heating, warm and safe.
“Where are your shoes?”
I pulled back to look at his face. His perfect, beautiful face with the rich brown eyes and a full sexy mouth. He had a bluish tint under his eyes that blended into reds and purples. He was still recovering.
One corner of his mouth tilted up teasingly. “No, really. Your feet are blue.”
Vincent interrupted. “We thought you might show up.” A pained smile slid across his face as he tried to stand upright. “In fact, we were counting on it.” He lifted a hand and before I knew what was happening, I was back in the snow. So fast, I barely registered the movement. So hard, the breath was knocked from my lungs.
Then the sound registered. A splintering blast of gunfire that ricocheted off the trees as the bullet tore through the forest.
With a growl, Jared turned on Vincent. Blood dripped down his arm from his shoulder. The bullet had grazed him. But