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Shax caught Kheone as she collapsed and swung her into his arms. The red line of the forming rift disappeared with a snap as she lost her battle with consciousness. His dagger dropped from her fingers and thudded to the ground with more weight and noise than he had expected. He left it.
Panic ripped through his heart. Shax examined Kheone as best he could. Her breathing was regular, if a little shallow, and apart from an ashen undertone to her warm, brown skin, she seemed fine.
“Kheone,” he whispered.
Her lashes fluttered, but her eyes stayed closed. She needed to rest. Whatever the Rite of Revelation was, it had taken almost every ounce of her considerable strength to survive. And then she had still rescued them both. Jesus Christ, she was incredible. No wonder he loved her.
He should have realized it when he couldn’t kill her a year ago.
Shax held her tight, feeling oddly comforted by her lithe body pressed against his. He had never thought it possible she might return his feelings, but that hadn’t been mere fucking. It had been more than a few millennia since sex had felt that good, that right.
Stuck at the museum with an unconscious angel for the foreseeable future, Shax didn’t know what else was around and if, or when, Michael might come after them. Some mess they had landed in, but at least they were still alive to appreciate it.
He needed to ensure her safety until she awoke, but the thought of leaving her on the cold floor of the storeroom was intolerable. It reminded him too much of the dank storeroom where he had found her. Shax carried Kheone through the echoey halls in the weird half-light permeating everywhere in this shadow world. The air was perfectly clean. No dust motes caught the light. No odors tickled their noses. The only sound was their breath and the scuff of his foot. Everything seemed magnified tenfold in the silence.
Once up the stairs and back to the gallery, he gently placed her on an upholstered bench in the middle of the room. He ran the entire way to retrieve the blanket and the dagger, loathe to leave her, even for a minute or two. Mostly, he wanted that blanket. It was cool in Purgatory, and it would come in handy.
He didn’t give a shit about the blade, but it wouldn’t do to having the thing lying around where anyone could pick it up, if anyone could pick it up besides the two of them. It was the only weapon they had against a gathering, a horde, a Duke of Hell, and the Archangel Michael.
The dagger still vibrated, the handle unnaturally warm, as though happy to return to its owner. Doomed to wield it once more, would it haunt him forever?
Shax didn’t make it a habit to question Lucifer, but he had wondered why the Prince of Hell wanted Kheone dead. The Morning Star rarely concerned himself with underling angels. Although she was one of the most successful Guardian Angels he’d ever had the pleasure of fighting, Kheone was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. All of Shax’s previous assignments had been too powerful Dukes or demons scheming against Lucifer. From time to time, the Prince had wanted to rid himself of a lover who strayed or someone who declined an invitation to share his bed. Kheone was the first angel on Shax’s hit list.
Now that he knew about Michael, it made a sick sort of sense. Michael may have thought all would be forgiven by freeing his brother, but the Prince of Darkness did not let go of grudges, petty to the bone. Kheone was Michael’s most trusted lieutenant, and perhaps Lucifer had some inkling of the other emotions lurking below their outward relationship. He had wanted Kheone dead to teach Michael a lesson.
Shax slipped the dagger under his belt and rushed upstairs. Kheone was almost exactly as he had left her. The only change was in her breathing, now even and relaxed as her chest rose and fell in restful sleep, and her color returned. So hard to tell in this eternal twilight. He tucked the blanket over her and stood against a wall, keeping watch. His job right now was to make sure she stayed safe while she recovered. They would figure out what to do once she felt better. Together.
That last thought filled him with a joy that seemed misplaced given their circumstances. An injured angel and a demon with only one superpower stuck in Purgatory, on the run from the two of the most powerful beings on Earth. Their chances of making it more than a few days were slim to none. But they were together. If Shax had learned anything, it was he and Kheone working together might pull a miracle out of their asses.
Shax was not sleepy, adrenaline still coursing through his system. After almost dying today, he didn’t want to close his eyes and waste what precious little life was left to him. He sat down on the floor, leaning against the bench, and took stock of the situation. The mental gymnastics necessary to make sense of this place already lodged the nugget of a headache deep in his skull.
Something was missing, though. The thought scratched at him, then smacked him. The buzzing sensation he’d fought for the past year had disappeared. Not just in Kheone’s presence, but since he’d realized he loved her. Lucifer’s compulsion to kill her, always just a lapse of control away, gone.
Good. With angels and demons on their trail, it was one less thing he needed to worry about. Kheone was in no shape to help at the moment, and there was no telling if what she had done was common or just some massive screw-up due to fear, exhaustion, or even the Goddamn dagger. They needed a plan, and they needed it three hours ago. Instead, they had the clothes on their backs, his dagger, and a barrier between worlds to keep their enemies at bay. It would have to do for now.
Movement from the bench drew his attention. Kheone thrashed in the middle of a dream, dislodging the blanket. He tucked it in around her again. She stirred.
“Shax?” Her voice was heavy with fatigue.
“I’m here.” He gently stroked her cheek. The simple gesture reignited the inferno of his hunger for her.
Kheone reached up and covered his hand with hers, stilling his movement.
“I forgot to thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
Her silver irises shone, and the corner of her lips twitched up.
“You came back for me. You could have run away, but you saved me. Thank you.”
Of course, he had saved her. He loved her. The whole truth would have to wait, but he could tell her a truth.
“You showed me kindness when no one else would. You trusted me when no one else would. You are my friend, my only friend. And I think there may be something more. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”
She smiled at him, a sleepy, beatific thing which made his heart beat faster.
“No more secrets, Shax.”
“Agreed,” he said. “But I have ten thousand years of secrets. It will take time to tell them all, and then there are the secrets I have forgotten, intentionally or otherwise.”
“We’ll get to them. I’m so tired.”
She shook beneath his hand.
“Sleep, Kheone. I’m not going anywhere.”
He stroked her hair, but the shivering worsened. As bad as things were for him, he had not trusted the wrong person. Of course, how was she to know the Archangel Michael was the wrong person to trust?
“So c, c, cold.”
Shax changed, and a small, black shadow leaped onto the bench and nosed under the blanket. Kheone dug her fingers into his warm, soft fur, and he purred. Her shivers subsided, his presence lulling her to sleep.
She had forgiven him, and she trusted him. A strange feeling filled up his chest. Hope? Maybe, just maybe, they would pull this off. Escape Michael and Aeshma, find a way to bring them down, find a way back to Earth.
Whatever happened next, they could decide when she awoke. For now, his only concern was for Kheone. Love had led him to Hell once upon a time. Maybe this time, it could save them both.