Free Dancing With the Devil by Misty Evans Page A

you
have to prepare for?”
    “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been out of the soul
harvesting biz for over a year. It’s not like riding a bike. There are
preparations I have to make or I could screw up everything. You don’t want
that, do you? Your one chance at redemption?”
    His eyes narrowed as he searched my face for subterfuge.
Then he sighed. “Fine. Five minutes. Not a second more, or I’ll…”
    I cut him off. “I got it. You’re big, you’re bad, you’ll do
whatever it takes to get back to Heaven. But if you want me to do my job ”
—I made air quotes around the word— “back off for a measly five minutes and let
me focus.”
    He took the bait, stepped out of my personal space and
grinned. “Knew I could count on you, Amo. If there’s one thing you can’t
resist, it’s being the hero.”
    I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the hex forming on my
tongue from spilling out. “Why in Satan’s name do you angels keep calling me
Amo? It’s Am y .”
    “Ask Lucifer. Ask him about your mom, too. There’s a lot
he’s not telling you.”
    A queasy knot formed in my stomach. I ignored it and went to
find my guardian angel.

Chapter Seventeen – Where For Art Thou, Mark?
     
     
     
    I didn’t get far. Just outside the dining room, in fact,
where Adam and Eve lay in wait to ambush me.
    “We need to talk,” Adam said.
    His long, chestnut-colored hair brushed his shoulders. Haunted
brown eyes met mine with urgency. The soft cotton of his T-shirt outlined every
one of his fireman muscles.
    Gorgeous. Plain and simple, he was one gorgeous human male specimen.
The father of all mankind. Yes, I loved Lucifer and now understood I’d never
love anyone the way I did him, but the female inside me still responded to
Adam. We had shared an uncommon, but righteously intense bond.
    Until Eve came along. His beautiful counterpart in the whole
In The Beginning thing.
    They belonged together, much like Lucifer and I did. Any
fool could see that. It still stung, though, to see them together and so…happy
with each other.
    “Not now.” I brushed past him, gave Eve my usual stink eye
glare. “I have to find Cephiel.”
    Eve, in all her mother-of-humankind splendor stepped in my
path. “This is important.”
    “Not as important as what I’m dealing with.”
    Keisha walked out of the dining room, a frown on her face
and a question in her eyes. She gave me the what now lift of her hands. I
shook my head. There was no time to explain. The music was louder out here, the
bass keeping rhythm with the pounding in my head. I scanned the crowd for
Cephiel.
    “He’s gone,” Eve said. “Left a few minutes ago with that
witch friend of yours.”
    Marcia was no friend and I was definitely ripping up her
Evie’s Buy-10-Get-1-Free ice cream card. It just figured she had whisked
Cephiel off to the land of sin right when I finally needed his angelic advice. “Did
they say where they were going?”
    “Amy.” Adam grabbed my wrist. “You need to come with us.”
    His touch was warm and familiar, but a cold tendril of magic
stung my skin where his fingers encircled my wrist. A cold magic that skimmed
my system, slamming up against my own magic and rattling down my spine.
    I knew that type of cold. Angelic.
    I jerked my arm from his grasp and backed up. “What kind of
game are you playing with Gabriel?”
    Eve stepped forward, backing me up against the wall. “Like
Adam said, you need to come with us.”
    She and Adam reached for my wrists at the same time. My
magic hissed. I flailed my arms and tried to push them aside. Where their hands
touched my bare skin, magic sizzled and sunk into me with sharp teeth.
    “Hey, what are you doing?” Keisha, seeing my distress,
rushed forward. “Let go of her.”
    But it was too late. The magic Gabriel had infused Adam and
Eve with bit down hard, sinking its cold fury into my bones. The room spun and
my head grew too heavy to hold up.
    The thumpthumpthump of the bass blocked out