Their banter was starting to distract me, which I didn’t doubt Chase was counting on. “As touching as this is, will you both shut up before I decide to shoot one of you?” I could just see Angel from the corner of my eye. “So you are the girl Chase Winters would do anything for…kill for even.” My lips thinned as I got my first good look at her. “You are not at all what I expected.”
Chase flinched. “What does it matter to you?” he spat, clearly ready to tear me to bloody bits.
“It’s my business to know everything about Divisa, including their weaknesses,” I leered.
“You touch a hair on her head,” he growled in desperate rage, “and I’ll make you wish you had never stepped foot in this town again.”
“I didn’t believe the rumors. Chase Winters’s Achilles heel…a girl? Never in a thousand years would I have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Does your girlfriend here know the truth about you? Does she know what you truly are, mutt?” I was baiting him, seeing what information he was willing to give.
Okay, maybe baiting him had been a very bad idea. His eyes hardened and turned that alien glowing yellow, but he neither denied nor confirmed what I already knew. “Brilliant,” I exclaimed sharply. “So she does know, which I’d already figured out. You aren’t doing a very good job protecting your secret. She makes you sloppy. With her, you drop your guard, forget what you really are.”
“What do you want?” demanded the little demon lover beside me. She had spunk; that was for sure.
I pursed my lips, sweat dripping down my back. “Hmm. The question of the hour. I thought that was obvious… To kill him, of course.”
She rolled her baby blues. “Good luck,” she muttered, showing sheer confidence in Chase.
“Angel? That’s your name, isn’t it?” I asked sneering. “Funny that your boyfriend is half-demon, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Not really. And he is not my boyfriend.”
I chuckled. Like hell he wasn’t. “The mark you have on your hip says otherwise.” There, I dropped the bomb.
Her eyes narrowed at me.
“You. Love. A. Demon,” I emphasized with a harboring hate. “It’s wrong. They’re wrong.”
She wiped her palm on the leg of her jeans. “Umm, love is such a strong word. I am not sure I would say love.”
“Angel!” Chase thundered.
She ignored him. “Like. I like Chase, though there are more days when I dislike him.”
I tried to hide the smirk that was on the verge of my lips.
“Angel,” he rumbled again, evidently about to go postal. “This isn’t helping.”
She just rambled on and on. “Have you met the man? He would drive even the sanest person crazy in a week. Or less.”
For the first time I caught a flash of movement next to Angel. With eyes pinned on Chase, I’d been unable to get a good look at who had accompanied her into the woods, but now that I saw who it was, I was struck speechless. My feet felt glued to the ground. My arms lost their strength. The trees, the crickets, and all the other sounds of the forest vanished as I stared into eyes the color of tropical waters. I felt myself being swept away.
Oh. Holy. Shit.
My name tumbled from his lips in a this-can’t-be-freaking-real way. “Emma.”
The sound of his voice had me spinning out of control, into another life. Memories of love hugged my hardened heart, threatening to crack the shield. For a split-second, I wanted to toss the crossbow to the ground and run into Travis’s arms, to feel that all-consuming love. It wasn’t just a spark… It was a full-out blazing fire.
I feasted on the sight of his face. Strong angles, lips you could sink your teeth into, and dimples you couldn’t help but kiss. He looked like a golden Greek god, and he had once been mine.
This definitely wasn’t my proudest moment. My emotions got the best of me, and my guard slipped away, but Travis had always had a powerful effect on me. I don’t know why I thought that would have changed. Shame on me.
“Angel!” bellowed a voice through the muffled shock-of-the-decade.
It was followed by a jarring hit to my side that caused me to bite my tongue, and then I was falling. I hit the stiff ground with Angel’s weight on top of me as my lungs struggled to breathe. She had knocked the ever-loving wind out of me. Honestly, I hadn’t seen that coming from her—so much for the nice-girl image. There was a pinecone stabbing me in the back, and before I could catch my breath, she went crazy. It was a tangle of arms and limbs connecting wherever they could.
I had to put an end to this, so I decked her in the mouth she was so famous for. It felt good to let loose this anger. Before I could get a second strike in, I was hogtied by arms of steel. They hoisted me off the ground, securing me. Tingles raced throughout my body in excitement.
Shit.
Travis.
I closed my eyes and bit the inside of my cheek. Dear God, I wanted to rest my head against his chest, if just for a minute. His breath tickled the back of my neck, and I tried not to shiver.
Epic fail.