Page 3 of Bad Medicine

He didn’t move when I strodetoward him, but I could see a gleam of surprise in his eyes that I would dare.Honestly, I just wanted to get to my closet. I hadn’t locked the blade up, justplaced it on the shelf inside the door. And from now on, I was sleeping withthe damn thing under my pillow.

I poked him in the chest, thengasped and took a step back when I actually felt his flesh. I looked at myfinger. “What the hell?”

“I’m a powerful being,” hesaid, his black eyes narrow. “Not a fucking ghost.”

But when I gingerly reached outto touch him again, there was only air. Mentally, I shrugged. Who knew withspirits? “You need to leave my house.” I’d have to find out if there wassomething to ward homes against angels. I couldn’t ask Lennon, seeing as howshe’d taken her traitorous, scarred face and headed for parts unknown.

“I will leave this hovel when Ihave the answers I came for.”

I edged around him and towardthe closet. “I gave you the only answers you’ll get from me, Bruiser.Seriously. Get the fuck out.” It was hilarious, really. I didn’t believe he’d hurtme. He was an angel, after all. Angels helped humans—they didn’t hurt them.

But just as I yanked open thecloset door, he grabbed the back of my neck with a huge hand and slammed meface first into the wall. I felt my nose break, and blood spewed from theinjured part as pain exploded through my head.

Red-hot rage erupted inside me,and my wolf, feeling the threat, took over. She surprised the hell out of me.She also showed me, in that moment, that she was capable of winning her shiftwhenever she wanted to. Or maybe it was just the presence of the brutal angel.She felt the threat more strongly than I did. She felt everything more stronglythan I did.

When I was my wolf, I saw himdifferently.

God, he was…terrifying. A sortof vicious nightmare I’d never felt before. He felt ancient, primal, and sounfamiliar I had no words for what he was. Except darkness. He was darkness.

My wolf felt other things, aswell—especially when she bit him. His blood inside her mouth was painful. Awfuland forbidden and full of a taste that should never have existed at all, andmaybe that blood would kill me if I swallowed it.

I swallowed, not because Iwanted to, but because he and I were locked in a battle so violent that the bedbroke, the tables shattered, the walls collapsed beneath the force of ourstruggling bodies. I was fighting a motherfucking angel.

It was going to be a littlefierce.

I was sure he was shocked by mystrength. He wouldn’t be surprised that I was a wolf, but he would be surprisedthat I fought him as savagely as I did. I was holding up pretty damn well. Andeven beneath the rage and terror, there was pride.

Lucy had taken Ash and fled.Smart girl. Unfortunately, she would also call Jared. I distantly heard herscreaming those very words before she took off.

“I won’t kill you,” the angelmurmured, when he forced me to the floor, finally, and draped himself over melike an iron cage. I couldn’t move, and it was then that I realized he’d beenplaying with me all along. He didn’t think I was strong. He was hurting me todraw in his reason for being there.

As though to prove what hecould do, what he was, he whispered, “Lose your shift. I prefer the woman.”

And I shifted. I couldn’t helpit, couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold on to my wolf out of sheer will alone. Hegot what he wanted.

Nicole loomed in my vision,just over his broad shoulder, like a terrible and beautiful avenging…angel.

“Lucas,” she roared, shockingme with the power in her voice. “Leave my charge.”

His smile pulled at the cornersof his lips as he stared down at me. He may have looked at me, but I believedhe saw only the angel behind him. “Take her from me,” he said. “If you can.”

She visibly trembled, but shestraightened her shoulders and refused to back down. “I did not betray them,Lucas. I did not—”

“You turned your back on us,”he snarled, lifting himself from me at last. “You left us to die.”

“You didn’t die,” shewhispered, and tears filled her jewel-green eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Everything hurt. My head, mybody, my very bones. I would shift to heal—I hoped—but first, there wassomething I had to do.

My closet door hung from onehinge, and I shoved it out of my way as I forced myself into the small room.The angels ignored me, probably believing I was going inside to hide. I wasn’tgoing to hide. I was going to get my demon blade and I was going to cut anasshole.

God, I was mad. It was that angerthat gave me the strength to fight on. Honestly, my body was so full of painthat if I hadn’t been full of rage, I wouldn’t have found the will to move, letalone continue to fight.

They were still arguing when Iemerged from the closet with my demon blade in my fist and death in my heart.Nicole saw me first and her eyes widened, her stare dropping to the blade,which had begun to glow and heat the instant it had come into the presence ofthe angels. It burned me. I felt the angry fire of it soaking into my flesh,smelled the seared flesh of my palm, and the pain was so abrupt and extremethat I nearly dropped it.

But then I set my mind toaccepting it. To absorbing it. And the pain became something else. I didn’tknow what it was, but it wasn’t pain, exactly. Not the way I knew pain. It becamepart of me, that fire, because I was something meant to hold it.

Lucas jerked around, his staretaking in the blade and the woman holding it, and shock flared in his eyes.“What—”