He was the reason she’d been marked. He was also her mentor.
His brother Reed entered the room behind him. Their features were similar enough to betray them as siblings, but they were otherwise as different as night and day. Reed favored Armani suits and sharp haircuts. Today he wore graphite gray slacks and a black dress shirt open at the throat and rolled up at the wrists. He was her superior.
Every Mark had a handler, a mal’akh—an angel—directly responsible for assigning them to targets. Reed had once likened the mark system to the judicial system. The archangels were the bail bondsmen, Reed was her dispatcher, and she was a bounty hunter. She wasn’t a very good one . . . yet. But she was learning and trying.
In the meantime, Reed was responsible for her assignments and for peripherally ensuring her safety. As her mentor, Alec’s sole responsibility—under usual circumstances—was keeping her alive. But God had been unwilling to lose the talents of his most established and powerful enforcer. Alec cut a deal to be with her, and the result was that Reed often had more liability where she was concerned. Considering the festering animosity between the two brothers, the setup was fucked all around.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Ms. Hollis,” Reed greeted. He smiled his cocky smile, but his dark eyes held an uncertainty Eve found endearing. He had no idea what to make of his feelings for her. Since she was in a relationship with his brother, she couldn’t help him with that. She tried not to think about her feelings for him. It was just too complicated. Her life was already a disaster of biblical proportions.
Both men spotted the angel in the corner, who stood unmoving. They bowed slightly in deference.
Because Miyoko was too busy glaring at Eve, she failed to catch the gesture. Eve used her job as an interior designer as an excuse for Reed’s frequent visits. As far as her family knew, she worked from home most days and if Reed wanted to see what she was up to, stopping by was the best way to do it. But Miyoko didn’t believe the lie. She assumed all male interior designers were gay and Reed was most definitely not. Eve had no idea what her mother thought was really going on, but she knew the obvious animosity between the two men was fodder for suspicions.
Alec’s smile warmed her from the inside. “How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some ice water,” Reed offered.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Alec bent and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Are you hungry?”
“A banana would be nice.” She caught his wrist before he could draw away. “I had a dream. A nightmare. I was killed by a dragon.”
“Your subconscious is trying to tell you something,” her mother interrupted. “But you couldn’t have dreamt you died. I heard if you die in your dreams, you die in real life.”
“I think that’s a myth.”
“There is no way to know,” Miyoko argued as she folded laundry. “If it happened to you, you would be dead and couldn’t tell us.”
Alec sat on the edge of the bed, watching Eve with an alert gaze. He knew she couldn’t say what she meant while her mother was in the room.
“It’s over now,” he soothed. “You’re safe.”
“It was so real . . . I don’t understand how I’m sitting here now.”
“We’ll talk later, after you’ve had a chance to eat.” He squeezed her hand. His expression held the softness he showed only to her. “Let me get you that banana.”
He left, and her mom returned to the side of the bed. Leaning over, Miyoko whispered loudly, “He fights with your boss. About everything. You would think they were married. Too much testosterone in those two. Not enough brains.”
The angel made a choked noise.
“Mom . . .” Eve glanced at the corner. He looked pained. It was an expression her father wore often.
Miyoko straightened and gathered up the now-folded clothes. “A thoughtful man would carry sunscreen to the beach. He wouldn’t let you get burned.”
Sunburned at the beach. Eve snorted at the excuse. If only she’d been bedridden for something so simple. “I can count on one hand the number of guys I’ve seen carry sunscreen.”
“A good man would,” her mother insisted.
“Like Dad?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve never seen Dad with sunscreen.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I thought it was.”
Eve loved her father, she really did. Darrel Hollis was a good ol’ boy from Alabama with an even-keeled temper and a gentle smile. He was also oblivious. Retired now, he rose at dawn, watched television or read, then went back to bed after dinner. The most unexpected thing he had ever done was marry a foreign exchange student (and Eve suspected her mother hadn’t given him much choice in the matter).
“Stop dating pretty boys,” Miyoko admonished, “and find someone stable.”
Eve shot a beseeching glance at the angel in the corner. He sighed and stepped closer. His voice had a soothing resonance no mortal could create.
“You want to replant the flowers in the pots by your front door,” he whispered in Miyoko’s ear. “You will go to the nursery, then home, where you will spend the rest of the afternoon indulging in your passion for gardening. Evangeline is fine and no longer needs you.”
Her mother paused, her head tilting as she absorbed the thoughts she assumed were her own. The gift of persuasion. Eve hadn’t mastered that one yet.
“You should get a spa pedicure, too,” Eve added. “You deserve it.”
Miyoko shook her head. “I don’t need—”
“Get a pedicure,” the angel ordered.
“I think I’ll get a pedicure,” Miyoko said.
“With flowers painted on your big toes,” Eve went on.
The angel shot her a quelling glance.
Eve winced. “If you want,” she amended quickly.
Alec returned with the banana. Standing by her bed, he peeled it, arresting her with the sight of his flexing biceps.
“I’m going home,” her mom said suddenly. “The laundry is done, the dishes washed. You’re fine. You don’t need me.”
“Thank you for everything.” Eve intended to stand and hug her mother, but remembered that she was naked between her satin sheets.
Miyoko waved her off and headed toward the door. “Let me change first and get my stuff together, then I’ll say good-bye.”
Reed’s voice rumbled down the hallway and swept over Eve’s skin like the warm caress of the sun. “Let me help you with that, Mrs. Hollis.”
Eve looked at Alec, who resumed his seat on the edge of her bed. Then, she glanced at the angel. “Hi.”
“Hello, Evangeline.” He stepped forward, his heavy boots making no sound on the hardwood floor. He had an inordinate number of feathers and appeared to have three pairs of wings. He was beyond impressive; he was the most perfectly gorgeous creature she had ever seen.
“Who are you?” she asked before taking a bite of the fruit. The first chunk was swallowed almost whole, followed immediately by another. Her stomach growled, reiterating that the mark burned a ton of calories and she was expected to keep up by eating frequently.
“Sabrael.”
Chewing, she glanced at Alec again.
“He is a seraph,” he explained.
Her eyes widened and she chewed faster, embarrassed to be naked in such company. The seraphim were the highest ranking angels, far above the seven archangels who managed the day-to-day operations of the mark system here on Earth. Alec was a mal’akh—the lowest rank of angel—as was his brother. Eve was a lowly Mark, one of thousands of poor suckers drafted into godly service for perceived sins. They worked for absolution by hunting and killing Infernals who’d crossed the line one too many times. A bounty was earned for every successful vanquishing, indulgences that went toward the saving of Mark souls.
“Can I get dressed?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the tips of her fingers.
Alec stood and took the empty peel from her. “Sabrael won’t leave until he speaks with you. Celestials have a different view of nudity than mortals do. Tell me what you need and I’ll get it.”
Eve directed him to a beach cover-up that hung in her closet. It was made of pale blue terry cloth and sported a hood, short sleeves, and a pouch in the front. Alec dropped it over her head, and she shoved her various body parts through the appropriate openings.
“Okay, Sabrael,” she began, brushing her hair back from her face. “Why are you here?”
“The better question would be: Why are you here, Evangeline? You should be dead.”
She bit back a groan. Another riddle. It seemed all the angels spoke in them, except for Alec and Reed. Those two spoke so bluntly she’d be perpetually blushing if not for the mark, which prevented her body from wasting energy. “I thought I was.”
“You were. But Cain claims you have knowledge we need.”
Eve looked at Alec. “You brought me back from the dead to grill me for information?”
Sabrael’s arms crossed in front of his massive chest. “You were going someplace where we would not have been able to ask you. It was the only way.”
Her gaze moved heavenward. “You’re not winning any brownie points with me,” she called out.
“It is not your place to demand Jehovah prove himself to you,” Sabrael said in a terrible voice.
“You said we missed something in Upland,” Alec prompted, his fingers lacing with hers.
She thought back to her last assignment—vanquishing an Infernal in one of the men’s bathrooms at Qualcomm Stadium. Alec had taken her out on their first “date”—a Chargers versus Seahawks football game. Reed had come along and said it was time to parlay her classroom instruction into the field.
“A wolf,” she murmured.
“What?”
“I assigned her to a werewolf,” Reed said from the doorway. He approached the opposite side of the bed and passed a chilled bottle of water across the expanse to Eve. “A kid. Easy pickings.”