“Scary.”

His face was shadowed, but I saw a faint grin appear. “They’re probably going to cause more headaches and damage than a horde of Fiends.”

“Probably.” My heart had slowed, but it was still pounding, and that had nothing to do with the skateboard gang. There was only an inch or so separating us. I drew in a shallow breath. “Then again, humans probably do more damage than most demons.”

“True.” His chin dipped.

I took another breath, a bigger one, and my chest brushed his. An elicit shiver danced over my skin. Had he moved closer? It was probably time to put some distance between us. I didn’t say that, though. I also didn’t move away. My hands remained where they’d landed, and I could feel each breath he took, long and slow, and not all that steady.

“Thank you.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Thicker. Richer.

“For what?”

I let my head fall back against the wall as I searched his expression in the shadows. “For dinner. I didn’t thank you. So, thank you.”

“You having a good time was thanks enough.”

My heart gave a happy little skip. “You always say the right things.”

“I say what I’m thinking. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong.” Zayne had moved closer as he spoke. His thighs touched mine. His hips met my stomach, and I knew he was picking up on what I was feeling. Warmth blasted my cheeks, but a different type of heat infused my skin as a low rumble radiated from deep within Zayne’s chest. There wasn’t even a centimeter between our bodies, and I felt that sound in every part of my being. My fingers dug into his shirt as whatever air I managed to get into my lungs slowly leaked out.

“Trin,” he said, my name a raspy low growl of warning.

Of wanting.

I slid my fingers down his chest, stopping on his taut stomach. Why not? That was the question cycling through my thoughts. Why couldn’t I stretch up and take what I wanted, what I suspected he wanted, too? In a physical sense, I knew he did. There was no denying that we were attracted to one another. That didn’t mean Roth was right. That he looked at me differently or that...that I loved him. It just meant that I wanted him.

No one had explained why a relationship was forbidden between a Trueborn and their Protector. Maybe the rule had made sense when there were more Trueborns, but now there was only me, and I couldn’t fathom why it would be a big deal.

I’d finally found someone that I liked—a lot—someone I was interested in beyond the whole physical attraction, and I couldn’t have him.

Life was unfair and the heart was cruel, wasn’t it?

Zayne’s breath danced along my cheek, and all I would need to do was turn my head just the slightest bit to the left and our mouths would be lined up. He wasn’t letting me go or putting distance between us, and he knew the rules. Maybe he was thinking the same thing I was?

What harm could a kiss bring?

Just one?

I turned my head. Zayne’s lips grazed the line of my cheek, coming within an inch of the corner of my mouth. Every nerve in my body seemed to fire at once, and something heavier, spicier, invaded my senses, slipping from that warm ball of light in my chest.

Zayne.

He was the thick heaviness in my chest, next to my heart, and it was mixing with the same feeling that had settled low in my stomach.

God, it really was coming from him. He was feeling what I was feeling. There was something between us, more than just a bond between Protector and Trueborn, and whatever it was made me feel hot and dizzy, like I’d been sitting in the sun all day.

I didn’t see him move, but I didn’t flinch when his fingers brushed my cheek, his thumb on my jaw. He tilted my head back even farther. Anticipation danced along my skin. In that moment, I wanted a kiss as badly as I needed the air I breathed. Every part of me was in agreement. I wanted to feel his lips against mine once again. I wanted to taste his breath on the tip of my tongue. I wanted so very much.

There was a wicked little voice in the back of my head that dared me to provoke the frustration and need I felt swirling inside him, to push the line between us as far as I could.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” Zayne’s voice sounded like it was full of gravel.

“Back off, then.”

He didn’t back off.

And I didn’t stop thinking about how kissing him felt like lightning or how it felt to be in his embrace, skin against skin. My muscles turned to liquid in a way that was as pleasant as it was painful.

Zayne’s forehead dropped to mine and I felt his chest expand with his next ragged breath. “Behave.”

The corners of my lips tugged up. “I’m trying to.”

“You’re not trying hard enough.”

My eyes drifted shut as my hips arched off the wall and then my breath hitched when his other hand curved around one hip. “You’re not trying, either.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m not trying, and I should be. We should be smarter than this.”

“Being smart is overrated,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “We’re supposed to be patrolling. Hunting the Harbinger. Not this.”

This.

Whatever this was.

“Agreed,” I admitted. “But you started this. Not me.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You cannot put this on me,” I argued. “Not when you’re the one holding me. This is your fault.”

“I can feel you.” His voice was just a whisper but it stretched my nerves tight. “The heat. The want. I can feel you. I find it hard to resist.”

My mouth dried. “And I can feel you. Did you think about that? Because I find it hard to resist.”

“Okay.” His warm breath made another pass over my lips. “How about we’re mutually at fault.”

“More like sixty percent your fault and forty percent mine but whatever.”

His chuckle was a rasping, seductive sound. “We need to get our heads in the game.”

We did.

And what Zayne had said a few seconds ago was right. Not the mutually at fault thing, but about us not being smart. We had no idea what the consequences would be if we were to be together, but I knew it couldn’t be anything warm and fuzzy. The rule had been created by the archangels, the highest order and most powerful of all angelic beings. They even oversaw the Alphas, who were responsible for communicating with the Wardens.

Not only were archangels notoriously strict and old school, they were often of the Old Testament variety, meaning they operated by an eye for an eye, literally. God only knew what kind of penalty they would whip up, having eons of experience behind them when it came to doling out punishment like it was candy and every night was Halloween.

Fear spiked, leaving my skin chilled, and it wasn’t for my own well-being. Considering how archangels often overdid things when it came to the punishment-fits-the-crime deal, they could hurt Zayne.

They could even kill him.

As fear turned my blood to slush, I thought of my father, of how unaffected he’d been by how Misha had turned out and by his demise. My heart tripped over itself. I doubted he’d step in if punishment were to be handed down, even with Zayne destined to be my Protector.

I was possibly overreacting about the whole killing-Zayne part. They needed me to find the Harbinger, and they needed me at peak performance to do so, and that meant they needed Zayne alive and whole, so maybe that meant we had the upper hand. Maybe—

A scream pierced through the distant hum of cars and people. We jerked apart, and I staggered away from the wall, turning toward the mouth of the alley. Another scream tore through the air, followed by shouts.

“What the Hell?” Zayne grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

Zayne took off, and with him guiding the way, I was able to easily keep up as we made it onto the sidewalk and dodged clusters of people.

Another shout ratcheted up my adrenaline. Up ahead, a small crowd of people on the sidewalks spilled into the street and blocked traffic. Zayne’s steps slowed as I struggled to see what was going on. The buzz at the nape of my neck told me there were demons around, but not close. So...human-on-human violence?

A flash of light caught my attention, followed by another. It took me a second to realize people were... They had their phones out and were taking pictures of something...

“Good God.” Zayne’s hand tightened and then released mine.

“What...?” I followed his gaze to the building everyone was standing in front of as the distant whir of sirens drew closer.

The building was a church, one of the old stone ones, the same church I’d seen when we left the restaurant. Something hung from one of the steeples—something large with wings, but wait...not hanging. More like pinned.

Unease formed a lead ball in my stomach. I took an unsettled step forward and squinted. “What is it?”

Zayne growled low in his throat, causing the tiny hairs along the nape of my neck to rise. “It’s a Warden.”

20

Zayne shifted so fast I doubted anyone near us would realize the massive winged Warden had appeared human a second before.

“Stay here,” he ordered, and for once, I didn’t get my hackles up over the demand. Not when there was a dead Warden strung up on a church.

Not when we should have been patrolling instead of eating dinner in a nice restaurant and doing whatever it was we’d been doing in that alley. It took no leap of logic to conclude that, if we’d been doing what we were supposed to, we might’ve seen who had done this. We could’ve caught the Harbinger or whoever was responsible.

This was the second time a Warden had turned up dead where we’d just been.

With a rush of wind, Zayne’s powerful wings lifted him into the air. Gasps followed as those in front of us wheeled around and craned their necks to watch Zayne fly toward the church. More lights burst from phones as he became nothing more than a blurry winged shape to me.

I knew that in the time it would take me to figure out how to spell falafel, pictures of the dead Warden would be plastered all over social media. What did they call it? Tragedy porn.