Heaven is a Harem 2 Read online

  Heaven is a Harem Book 2

  Kim Faulks

  Covert Art

  Jacqueline Sweet

  For Cassie and Mila. Two kickass writing buddies.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  How do you fight for a mortal's damned soul?

  With teeth and claws. With wings and hate.

  With brass knuckles coated with Demon blood.

  And that's exactly what my Archangel intends to do.

  I never wanted this bloodline, never wanted to belong to both the darkness and the light. I’ll renounce Lucifer’s hold over me, and I’ll fight.

  But the Nephilim are rising, staking their claim over my body and my soul, bringing that dangerous part of me to the surface, until one night…in a derelict church in the middle of a desert, they come.

  Dark against light.

  Heaven against Hell.

  Who will survive?

  Chapter One

  Remi

  “We have to get out of here. Leave the city. Can’t stay here, not now we’re…”

  Fallen from Grace…

  Michael never said the words, but he didn’t need to. He didn’t need to say a damn thing. His posture said it all. The Archangel gave commands to the filthy wall beside him and had done since I’d dragged him, broken and bleeding, into the drug dealer’s apartment.

  “You’re not strong enough.” I lifted my head from the bed to find him lying on the floor. “None of us are.”

  There was a rasping breath beside me. I turned to Knox, finding hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. His eyelids trembled, fluttering open before they closed once more.

  This was the third time he’d surfaced, and the third time he sank into unconsciousness once more. Maybe next time, he’d stay awake for good.

  “He’s right,” Lucien pushed against the bottom of the mattress and struggled to sit up. “Arrow and the others will hunt us down. We might see the Demons coming, but we’ll never see them.”

  Michael flinched at the name.

  It’d been eight hours since I drove the priest’s car here…and four since we found Michael and Knox, barely alive. It wasn’t enough time to heal, or to come up with any kind of a plan.

  I closed my eyes and lowered my head to the sweat-stained sheets, my hand drifted down to the weapons strapped to my thighs. The leather sheaths were snug against my body, the honed wooden stakes were bloodstained, ready for more.

  “We need to find Saintkiller.”

  There was silence, not even a tremble, until slowly, Knox opened his eyes, and this time they stayed open. There was a slight tremble, or was it a shake of his head. “No,” the Angel murmured beside me. “No fucking way.”

  But the Archangel wasn’t listening. If he was, he didn’t give a shit.

  Michael drove his body upwards from the hard floor. His knees cracked, jaw bulging under the strain. “First, I need to find Gabriel. I need to explain. Maybe he can get a message…”

  Pain savaged his eyes, soul-deep pain, bone-deep pain. But he’d never let me help him. He’d never rely on anyone.

  Not the mighty Archangel Michael.

  God’s warrior. God’s sword…but not anymore.

  I inhaled hard and rose from the bed. Agony tore along my spine.

  “Stay, rest,” the Archangel snarled through clenched teeth as he gripped the doorframe and stood on shaking legs.

  “I’ll rest when you do,” I slid my feet toward the end of the mattress, uncurling my legs. We all needed rest, and there was no way I was sleeping another fucking second on my own.

  Not now.

  Not after what’d happened.

  You mean, not after me…

  I closed my eyes, and tried to ignore that voice inside my head. But as always, she waited, lingering in the darkness…the darkness I now knew was the connection to my father.

  Lucifer.

  The Lord of Hell.

  I swallowed the thought. The hard outline of a key pressed against my thigh from inside my pocket.

  Fuck destiny, the words still rang inside my head.

  And Michael’s answer followed. Says the woman with the key to Hell in her pocket.

  The Archangel stumbled out the doorway and headed for the bathroom.

  “He’s right, you know.” Lucien lifted his head and rose, slowly uncurling along the end of the bed. “The key was given to you for a reason. You need to figure out what that reason is…for all our sakes.”

  Lucien stood quietly, one wing drooped low. Blood crusted the tips of perfect white feathers and smeared the side of his face.

  Still, he walked out of the room with barely a whimper, leaving Knox lying on the bed, watching me. “He’s hurt and pissed, we all are. But we’ll fight for you…for as long as you fight for us.”

  The mattress springs howled under the strain as the Angel slipped his feet from the bed and rose to his feet. We left behind stains on the mattress, blood, sweat, terror. The sickening smell permeated the room, like a rag down my throat.

  Knox stumbled toward the doorway and lifted his hand to the back of his skull. They were wounded…no, they were Fallen.

  Fallen from God.

  Fallen from Grace.

  And it was all because of me.

  My stomach clenched as I reached into my pocket and dragged the iron key free. I wanted to hate it, to feel something other than a sense of loss. The number two was carved into the head of the key, deep grooves worn down from an eternity in Hell.

  Why did my mother have it? How in God’s name did she steal it from Hell?

  Figure it the fuck out. I lifted my head to the hallway as Michael’s words resounded inside my head. The toilet flushed, and the door opened a second later.

  He looked invincible, even as haunted and as battered as he was. He carried the fire in those blue eyes. Fire that reached me as he lifted his gaze.

  There was a second when I thought he’d close the space, press that powerful chest against mine, corner me like a predator corners its prey.

  My heart pounded, pulse raced. I swallowed hard, before he broke the stare, and glanced at the key in my hand.

  “We need to get moving,” he took a step, skimming the far wall as he strode past. “We’ll need all the weapons we can get.”

  Because they’re weaker.

  The heavy thud of his footsteps echoed. I turned toward the open door of the bathroom and started looking. I’d search this place, search every damn wall if I had to.

  “I’ll grab what’s left of the guns in the bedroom,” Lucien answered behind me.

  I shoved the key into my pocket and strode into the bathroom. I took what I could, anything that I could use as bandages or splints for broken wings. But no matter how hard I searched, there was nothing I could use to mend a broken heart.

  The ache tore across my chest once more. I focused on searching, shoving my hand inside cabinets and along the underneath of the shelves and drawers—I looked everywhere.

  “I’ve got a shotgun and three boxes of cartridges.”

  I flinched at Lucien’s voice behind me. “There’s nothing more here. Jus
t the other two bedrooms.”

  “I’ve got something,” Knox called out. “In the ceiling.”

  I lifted my gaze to the crumbled sections above and then stepped onto the side of the tub. One glance down, and I shoved, grasping the towel rack for balance.

  “Easy,” Lucien stepped closer.

  My hand shot out. His fingers found mine. I lowered my gaze to him. We’d told no one about the kiss, and for a second, delirium raged inside my head, leaving me to wonder if it had happened at all.

  Lucien’s thumb moved across the back of my hand, the touch soft and comforting, but his eyes were filled with need that he wouldn’t act on.

  Not now.

  Not ever, if it came to that.

  “Lucien,” Michael called. “We need those weapons.”

  The Angel below me flinched and pulled away.

  There was an unspoken rule I hadn’t fully understood before. Michael was more than a leader, he was more than a commander. He was the first and the last, everything started and ended with him…including their alliance, and their affection.

  I let Lucien’s hand go, instead turning my focus to the ceiling above.

  His footsteps rang out, leaving me to grasp the rack with one hand and search the ceiling with the other. I pushed across the sections of soft tile, bits of debris rained down. But there was nothing. Not in here, at least.

  I stepped down as the scrape and crash of a fist against the wall came from the midnight-blue bedroom where I slept.

  “I’ve got more here,” Lucien called out.

  Michael strode toward me, his gaze drifting to the doorway of the room. “We need to get out of here. Get everything together, we’re leaving in five.”

  “I’ll find us some wheels,” Knox stepped closer, reached into the open bag, and grabbed a fat wad of cash before he met my gaze and turned.

  Agony blazed in his eyes, and something else.

  Something akin to need.

  He refused to take the elevator. Not after a horde of Demons attacked Seven Levels and overran not just the guarded motel, but every being left behind.

  Inside my head, nails raked against the steel elevator car. I could still feel them, still hear them…their desperation—their rage.

  Knox was gone in a heartbeat, one moment standing on the small terrace, and the next, there was nothing.

  My chest tightened at the sight, as Lucien strode toward me with a large duffel bag packed with guns and money. “It should do for a while, at least.”

  Guns and money.

  Broken wings and crusted blood.

  How much more could we handle?

  The answer was a low, predatory snigger inside my head.

  We’re only getting started, honey, my own voice drifted to the surface. Aren’t you having fun?

  Chapter Two

  Knox

  My boots hit the pavement and I lifted my gaze to the apartment high above. I had to get out of there…for just a second—I had to get away from her.

  Her smell, her warmth. Her fucking pheromones. Fuck’s sake. My body trembled, desire thick in the back of my throat. A battle raged inside me, it was either kiss her, or leave.

  And there was no way I could give in. Not now when we were weak.

  The word didn’t sit right, like a bone wedged in my throat.

  I rubbed the tension in the back of my neck and strode away. My wing ached, the muscles tender and raw. I was healing, but not anywhere near as fast as I should.

  Maybe Michael was right. Maybe we were disGraced and it was time to look elsewhere for help.

  But the Saintkiller?

  More importantly, Farron…

  I winced with the name, and tried to shove the mage from my mind. It’d been a hundred years since I’d seen her.

  Maybe she’d forgotten all about the chains and the torture?

  Maybe she’d forgotten I killed her damn pet?

  Surely after all this time, she’d let bygones be bygones?

  An uneasy feeling swept through me like a cold November wind.

  I doubted that…I doubted that very fucking much.

  Focus, asshole. Right now, we had enough problems to deal with. Hell, Michael might even change his mind, or I just needed to find a way to change it for him.

  The thick wad of cash bulged in my pocket. I needed a car, and then a plan. Something other than Saintkiller, the asshole who sees the future through two colored, glasses, both Heaven and Hell.

  I searched for the tendril of power. The faint connection was thin at fucking best. I clung to that hum of power and found the doorway to the strip club in the distance.

  But there was no red light in the entrance, no heavy beat of desire. And no echo of a woman’s cries, or the piece of shit husband I saved her from.

  There was only the blare of car horns, and careful gazes from drug deals, and sex in sunken stairwells.

  But that’s what it meant to be mortal, wasn’t it? The highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

  She made me feel like that…the half-mortal, Remi.

  And I didn’t like it.

  I didn’t like it at all.

  I lengthened my stride, stepped down from the pavement and crossed the street. I saw them now, their need…their greed. I saw them all in vivid fucking color. Vehicles braked hard in front of me. A guy raced between them, watching the cars and smacked into my arm.

  “Watch it,” he snarled. “Fucking prick.”

  I clenched my jaw and kept on walking. Seeing mortals clearer was one thing—trying not to kill them was another.

  I stepped between parked cars and mounted the gutter as the clumps of mortals grew. Mothers pushed strollers, teenage schoolgirls watched me and giggled as I passed.

  I glanced down at my torn, blood-splattered shirt and winced. No wonder they were staring. One grasp of the hemline and I tore what was left of the clothing free.

  The schoolgirls squealed and laughed. I glanced over my shoulder, catching them one by one looking at me. What the fuck?

  “Good God,” a woman murmured and stared as she strode past. “You’re gonna cause an accident looking like that.”

  I scowled and clenched my fist. The muscles of my chest bulged, but there wasn’t a gash, or blood—not anymore. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  I glanced at the park, catching others peeking my way. The faint flow of energy was still there, so it wasn’t my wings they were staring at…

  Heat crept into my cheeks, goosebumps raced, and my stomach trembled.

  A tiny shop was open, one single rack of secondhand clothes shoved out front. I glanced at the park, catching one more hopeful stare, and headed for the open door.

  The stench of dust and mothballs was choking as I stepped inside. I winced, scanned the empty shop, and headed for the counter as a gray-haired old woman lifted her gaze from a newspaper in her lap.

  “I need a shirt.”

  The crossword was forgotten as her eyes widened. “It seems you do. Busy night, huh?”

  I glanced around the tightly packed store. “Got into a fight with some Fallen Angels, faced off with the Lord of Hell, beat up some piece of shit for hurting his wife…yeah, you could say that.”

  Her lips parted. She just stared, unable to speak, until finally she whispered, “Oh.”

  “So, about that shirt.”

  The newspaper slipped from her fingers as she hurried around the end of the counter. Her head was already shaking. “Not sure if I have anything that will fit you.” She turned and eyed my chest, the soft, flabby skin of her throat trembling as she swallowed. “You are quite…large.”

  I lifted my hand and ran the blunt edges of my nails through the stubble on my head, searching the line of ugly-ass, colored shirts. A flush swept the old woman’s cheeks.

  I glanced down to the swell of my chest, then my stomach, understanding now what the female mortals were looking at. “You like what you see, old woman?”

  The old woman jerked her gaze to mine. “If I was sixt
y years younger, I’d show you just how much. But right now, my heart tablets can only help me so far. So you, young man, need to put on a damn shirt.”

  Angel, I wanted to correct her. I’m not a man…I’m a damn Angel.

  Sex and money. Greed in all its desperate and seedy forms.

  They stared at me with cold, hungry eyes, except Remi. She never looked at me like that…why?

  The thought stayed with me as the old woman grasped a pale blue long-sleeved shirt from a hanger. “Try this on.”

  I yanked the shirt over one arm and then the other. The old woman’s fingers trembled as she tugged the middle together, the edges straining as she worked one button after another. “Dear God, a little mercy,” she murmured, her gaze fixed on her hands as they slid lower and lower.

  “I think it’s a little tight, don’t you?”

  “It’s perfect,” she snapped, her eyes darkening just a shade.

  “Fine, whatever. I’ll need more, this size and bigger, if you have them.”

  I scanned the crammed racks and glanced toward the back of the store. Long, tan-colored coats were draped in a corner. “And some of those.”

  I stepped away and wove through the jutting hangers. One for Michael, and Lucien. What about Remi? I grasped a smaller black one with the other two and made for the counter.

  “Three shirts, all in bigger sizes. Good enough?”

  I nodded, and jerked my gaze toward the coats. “Those, too.”

  She hurried, eyeing the wad of cash as I pulled it from my pocket. “I never saw you, couldn’t pick you from a lineup even if I wanted to.”

  She lifted her hand and tapped a finger to the corner of her eye. “They’re not what they used to be. Got nothin’ to fear from me.”