call it a well-deserved execution. You’re not telling me you support the rebels, do you?”
Perhaps my retort hadn’t been the best idea. “I don’t know anything about them.”
“Well, I’ll bring you to the count. He’s expecting you.”
As we walked, I felt it pulsing off him—the power that crackled like electricity around my body, making my pulse speed up. It was a dizzying sense of the divine that made it hard for me to remember where I was, what was up and what was down.
At the end of the hall, Lord Sourial pushed through a wooden door. There, Count Saklas sat behind a mahogany desk, his cowl pulled up. Light beamed through a diamond-paned window behind him. Bookshelves lined every wall. Forget the wings, the power, the wealth—the real difference between them and me was knowledge. And I wanted some of that.
The door slammed behind me.
It was just me and the death angel.
He had no fire burning in the hearth, only dead ashes. The chilly air raised goosebumps on my skin. He seemed a beautiful, divine being sculpted from darkness.
But a sense of wrongness seemed to stain the air around him, his eyes too bright under that hood, the air around him too dark.
He rose from his chair and walked around his desk, his gaze sliding over me. “Zahra. You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?” His deep voice skimmed up the back of my neck. “Turn around.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, and turned to face his desk. He crossed behind me. I felt it then, the rush of his magic over me that was so like the rush of tingling heat from the feather. I could hardly remember what he’d just said to me.
“Put your hands on the desk.” Pure, shadowy power emanated from him, sliding across the bare skin on my back.
I’d come here knowing what I was in for, knowing what I was doing. I’d chosen this because I had to know what happened to Alice.
I felt like my pulse was racing out of control, my skin hot all over.
I did as he said. I put my hands on the desk, leaning over it.
He leaned over me, one hand next to mine. Warmth from his chest beamed over me like the rays of the sun, and I felt the steel of his body against mine. His masculine scent slipped around my body like smoke.
The cold castle air hit my legs as he lifted up my dress from behind.
My face flushed hot as the force of his erotic angel magic snaked over me.
12
Count Saklas
She smelled of roses and oak. A mortal scent, exotic to me.
Disturbingly, there was some part of me that liked having her here in my control. The conquering side, dominating her. Not surprising, I supposed. I was made to dominate. She was my prisoner, whether she knew it or not.
Conquest was my divine mission. Total submission of mortals who opposed me.
Did she oppose me? My dreams suggested I needed her on my side. Not that it would be easy to control her. I could sense resistance in her.
Conquest … For most of the other Fallen, the conquest would be another kind. Mortal women were sexually addicted to the touch of angels. So her heart would race, and her back would arch at my caress. I’d strip her completely bare, make her beg for release. Pure, ecstatic and shameless satiation at my fingertips. Maybe I wished that sort of conquest were for me, but it was not. Love and pleasure were not part of my destiny. And what was more, the desire for mortal women was very dangerous to me.
God created me to deliver death.
So with the hem of her skirt pulled up, I reached down for what I was looking for—the weapon strapped to her thigh. My fingertips brushed her skin as I pulled the dagger from its sheath. I heard her breath hitch at the contact.
Strange that was all it took. And strange that the sound squeezed my heart.
I let the hem of her dress drop, and turned the dagger over in my hand. It looked expensive, a short, double blade of fine steel that gleamed in the light. Slightly curved. Ideal for slitting someone’s throat—the blade of choice for someone who wanted to work silently, in the shadows.
Bizarrely, half my mind was still on her body, bent over the desk. Though I should have been focused on the fact that she’d come armed.
“Did you think to use this on me?” I asked.
Did she