eyes of rich chocolate brown. Once, Alec had looked at her with a heat so scorching it burned her skin. She missed that look. Then again, she got hot enough for the both of them just checking him out.
At a few inches over six feet, Alec was as ripped as one would expect a skilled predator to be. He was God’s most revered and trusted enforcer, and his body reflected that calling. His hair, as always, was slightly overlong, but she would fight off anyone who approached him with shears.
“Could God have waited any longer to bail me out of the mess he put me in?” she groused.
“Did you note the lack of fire?” His voice—dark and slightly raspy—was pure seduction, even when laced with the resonance unique to archangels. It didn’t sound that way when he spoke to her telepathically, which was sadly appropriate. Who he was in reality was far different from who he was in her mind.
She blinked up at him. “You bailed me out? What the hell? Was he just going to let me die? Again?”
“Obviously not, since you’re not dead. It was a lesson in faith.”
“More like a lesson in ‘I am God, see me fuck with you.”
“Watch it’ he admonished.
Eve accepted his proffered hand. As he pulled her upright, his powerful chest and tautly ridged abdomen flexed noticeably beneath his fitted white T-shirt. She couldn’t help noticing stuff like that, even though she couldn’t touch what she was looking at.
“What is it with demons and bathrooms?” she asked. “Grimshaw started a trend when he sent that dragon to kill me. I swear I’ve vanquished at least half a dozen Infernals in bathrooms since then.”
The dragon had been a courtier in Asmodeus’s court, but he’d killed her for Charles Grimshaw— former Alpha of the Northern California Black Diamond Pack and father of the wolf she’d had to kill twice. Demon retaliation was a bitch.
Alec cursed at the sight of her thigh. Her toes were squishing in the blood soaking her sock and puddling along the sole. She would need a new pair of boots.
He bent to examine her wound more closely. “I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to scare off the crowd of Infernals in the hall first.”
“Crowd?”
“I don’t think the ice bitch was kidding about the bounty.”
“What do you know that I don’t? You wouldn’t believe an Infernal without some sort of proof.”
Alec had assumed control over the day-to-day operation of Gadara Enterprises—the secular front for the North American firm of Marks—since the archangel Raguel had been taken prisoner by Satan a couple of months back. That meant Alec was privy to almost every hellacious and celestial happening that occurred between the top of Alaska to the end of Mexico.
“The number of Infernals in Orange County has tripled in the last two weeks.”
Which was when she’d graduated from training. As she was often reminded, nothing was a coincidence. “No wonder it’s been so busy around here.”
He gave her a resigned look. “It will get busier, if Sammael’s set his sights on you.”
“With a free-for-all bounty open to all classes of demons? Jeez, you’d think I kicked his puppy or something. Oh wait. . . I did.” Eve put weight on her wounded leg and winced at the immediate throb of agony.
Alec tucked his shoulder under her arm to support her. “We need to bandage that leg, smart ass.”
“You like my ass, and not because of its IQ.”
“Love it.” He gave her butt an affectionate squeeze. Alec might be restricted from feeling emotional love for her, but lust wasn’t a problem. “But I love the rest of your hot body, too, and I’d like to keep it in one piece.”
The mark enabled her to heal super fast. In an hour or two, only a pink scar would remain, and by nightfall, the injury would be nothing but a memory. But she could help move things along in the recovery department by closing the hole with some butterfly bandages. She’d have to hurry; her mom was still waiting for her.
I’ll take care of Miyoko, he assured her.
“I’ll take Eve back to her place to change,” a deep voice intruded.
They turned their heads to find Reed by the door. The men’s features were similar enough to betray them as siblings, but they were otherwise polar opposites. Reed favored Armani suits and faultless haircuts. Today he wore black slacks and a lavender dress shirt open at the throat and rolled at the wrists. It was