Yet he’d saved her.
Brandt exhaled and rolled his shoulders. Tension was making his whole body ache. “If you aren’t going to be useful, I’ll just rip open your throat and hunt them down myself.”
Her ragged breathing seemed too loud in the small room. She kept her wide eyes on him.
Brandt lifted a brow. He could almost see the gears rolling in her head as she schemed. “Trying to pull together enough magic to work against me, huh?”
“As soon . . . as I’m . . . stronger . . .”
“Blah the f**k blah.” She was never going to be stronger. He’d seen to that. The witch didn’t even know what he’d done. She would. Soon enough. He sat on the small bed next to her and rather enjoyed the way she flinched away from him. As if she hadn’t begged him to touch her so many times in the past. “Tell me everything you know about Azrael.”
She blinked. “Who?”
Fine. If she wanted more pain . . . He lifted his claws over her neck. “Az-ra-fucking-el.”
A tear leaked from her eye. “Oh, him.”
Right. Him. “I’ve got some demons in New Orleans who tell me that that bastard is supposed to be pretty damn strong.” He paused. “But then, angels are, aren’t they?”
She nodded and his claws scraped over her chin.
Good. She wasn’t going to deny what the guy was. “How’d you find him?” He pulled his claws away from her throat.
A laugh spilled from her lips. Sad. Angry. “I found him naked in a cemetery. He’d just fallen, and I went to help him.”
Brandt didn’t let his expression alter even though his heart was suddenly pounding far too fast. “You’re not exactly the helping sort.” One of the things that had always kept him on edge—Heather could be as brutal and cold as he was.
That was why she’d be dying soon. But first . . . He leaned forward and brushed back the hair that had gotten stuck in the blood on her cheek. Heather watched him with wide eyes. Eyes that had always seen too much.
“Just where had this Azrael fallen from?” He asked, testing her.
She swallowed. “Where the hell do you think?”
Brandt didn’t hurt her. Not this time. “Once upon a time, you told me that you had a vision that an angel would kill you. That he’d destroy the whole world.” Heather and her visions. She’d looked into the dark so many times. At first she’d scryed because he’d wanted to see what the future held. But later, Heather had done it because she’d grown addicted to that wild rush of power.
He knew how tempting darkness was.
When a witch scryed, she looked past life and death. She looked into the very darkness that waited for man and for the Other.
The death and darkness looked back at her. Sometimes, they even struck out at her. Heather had the scars on her body to prove that.
She’d first come to him, young and scared, because of that initial death vision. She’d wanted to find someone to keep her safe from the angel who would be her doom.
She’d turned to the wrong man.
She’d gone back to look in her mirrors, over and over, but her death vision had never changed.
An angel would slay her. An angel who walked the earth without wings. An angel who only knew death.
Cocking his head to the side, Brandt asked, “Has your future changed?”
A ragged breath, then, “Some things can’t . . . be changed.”
“No, they can’t be.” Some people couldn’t change. But he was surprised because . . . “If Azrael is the one who is supposed to kill you, then why is he still breathing? Why didn’t you send him to hell on your own?”
“Because you can’t kill Death.”
Maybe the witch had finally gone crazy. Too much darkness could do that to a weak spirit. Brandt shrugged. “He bled easily enough for me.”
She glanced away. Ah . . . hiding something. No matter. He’d get to that truth soon enough. Right now, he wanted to know . . . “Why is he with Jade?”
“Because he’s f**king her.”
Inside, the panther snarled, even as the man shoved his claws into the nearest wall. A wall mere inches from Heather’s head.
“I made sure of it,” she whispered and she stared right into his eyes as she confessed, “I even . . . helped them along.”
With a yank, his claws came free and chunks of drywall littered the bed. “Your damn spells.”
Her smile had once been beautiful. Now it was just cold. “I simply gave Jade the courage to take what she wanted.” She tried to shrug, but the motion stopped when she winced in pain. “It would have happened . . . eventually. I saw the way she looked at him. The way . . . he looked at her.”