Angels of Bourbon Street (33 page)

I shifted and met Kane’s rich chocolate eyes.

“Jade.” His voice was soft but full of determination. “I won’t stand by and watch you fade into oblivion.”

There was no point in denying his devotion. Chessa could read it all over both of us, and considering she was an angel, I knew she wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted from us.

This moment, even more so than our wedding day, meant we’d be committing our lives to each other forever. The angel was asking us to form a mated bond, one that would be unbreakable.

“Are you sure? This is more than a lifetime commitment,” I said.

“I’ve already committed my life to you.”

“I know, but this is so much more permanent.”

He chuckled. “Do you really believe I ever thought our marriage would be anything except permanent?”

“You know what I mean. Not only will we be tying ourselves together, but to the angel realm. This isn’t an ‘until death do us part’ thing. This is eternal.” Biting my lip, I nodded toward Chessa. “This is an ongoing payment for my soul. In essence, we’ll belong to them. Forever.” My heart pounded with the realization that if we said yes, I’d be getting everything I ever wanted—someone who couldn’t ever leave me. We’d be bound in life and death. I’d never be abandoned again.

Then a sickness took over. I didn’t want him like that, forced to be with me by a higher power. Shaking off the thought, I focused on the fact that he’d already chosen me.

Kane stared down at me, his expression calm, thoughtful. Then he smiled and faced Chessa. “I want to negotiate terms.”

She frowned. “What terms?”

He motioned for me to sit and took the chair beside me. “Everyone in this room knows I’m going to say yes, but I’m not willing to let the realm have complete control over us. If we were to become slaves to you, our lives would hardly be worth living anyway. So my offer to you is this: the pair of us will accept your condition of becoming shadowwalkers, but we want to be compensated as a low-level angel would. We also want all the benefits and rights that they have under your laws. There will be no exceptions because we are humans.”

Whoa, this was businessman Kane in action. I had no idea he knew so much about angels, but then, he had dated Lailah a while back. It made sense he knew about their world. I couldn’t help but smile. He could be my negotiator any day…or night.

“We will not be at your beck and call, and we will not be expected to run down cases that are suicide missions,” Kane added.

Chessa made a note in the file. “Who do you propose decides the danger level of the missions? The shadowwalkers who work for us report directly to me. Always have.”

“We will.” Kane never broke eye contact with her. “If you disagree, we can bring it up before the council for an inquisition.”

“And the witches council,” I interjected.

Chessa’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. “The witches council has nothing to do with this.”

“No, they don’t,” I agreed. “But I’m certain my coven will end up involved. They would never sit by and let something happen to me if a mission goes wrong. Plus the witches council will act as a balance in case the angel council becomes…how should I put this? Corrupted by their power.”

“Absolutely not,” Chessa said. “Unacceptable. Witches are not welcome in the business of angels.”

“Yet you want to employ me in your search for lost souls.”

Gwen cleared her throat. “May I make a suggestion?”

All three of us turned to stare at my aunt.

“Yes, you are allowed to speak,” Chessa said.

I bit back a snarky reply. Who did Chessa think she was anyway? Just because she was a high-ranking angel…

“Perhaps you could put together an appeal board made up of witches who are familiar with angels and their ways.”

“And who would these witches be?” Chessa asked suspiciously.

“The ones who bore angel children seem the best candidates. They have the most knowledge.”

“No.” Chessa closed the file in front of her. “That’s a deal-breaker.”

“Then I refuse to give Jade part of my soul.” Gwen sat back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What?” I asked in a low harsh tone.

She ignored me.

“You’ve seen something,” Chessa said with certainty. Was she reading Gwen’s mind too? Most likely.

Gwen shrugged noncommittally.

“You’d really condemn her?”

“It’s my belief that if there aren’t checks and balances, her life will no longer be her own. That isn’t something I can contribute to, so yes. If you refuse to offer her a way to appeal life-threatening situations, then I refuse to give her a piece of my soul, which I’m certain you need.”

Chessa sucked in air through her nose, and her face flushed.

She’s just as desperate for us to agree as we are to fix my soul.
Why? Did it matter why if I came through this alive? The tension eased from my shoulders. She wasn’t going to roll over and let us have our way, but she would bend.

Now was the time. “I agree,” I said. “If the review council of witches is ignored, I’m going to have to refuse this offer.”

Gwen’s lips twitched, and I knew she was hiding a smile.

Chessa studied me. I made no effort to hide my contentment with my decision. She blew out a breath. “Fine. I’ll set one up.”

“With witches who are in no way affiliated with the angel realm except that they have an angel child,” Gwen said.

Chessa leaned forward. “Are you implying I’m dishonorable?”

Gwen mirrored her action. “No. Not at all. I’m just looking out for my niece.”

The angel hit a button on a speaker and demanded her assistant write up the contracts and clipped out the instructions for a witch’s appeal board. There was silence on the other end of the intercom and then finally her assistant cleared her throat. “As you wish, Ms. Ballintine.”

Chessa glared at us. “The contracts will be ready in ten minutes.”

Chapter 31

An hour later, Mom, Lailah, and Philip were dismissed. The contracts were signed, and then Gwen, Kane, and I were strapped into reclining chairs, waiting for our souls to be altered.

Chessa hovered over me. “You’ll be given a few weeks to recover, and then a directive will be sent with your first mission.”

“Fine.” Honestly, I was too nervous for Gwen and Kane to care much about my new job. I knew exactly what it felt like to get part of your soul ripped away. It made my stomach turn just thinking about it. I glanced at the lab technician. “Can you give them painkillers?”

He shook his head. “They need to be alert. Besides, it won’t hurt that much anyway.”

I scoffed.
Right
.

“We’ll be fine, sweetie. Don’t worry,” Gwen’s voice drifted from my left.

Kane’s hand tightened on mine. We were in separate chairs but close enough our hands could touch. “You lived through it once. We’ll live too.”

“But I was unconscious for days afterward.”

“It won’t be anything like that, Ms. Calhoun,” the kind-eyed technician assured me. “Your soul was ripped in two. This is closer to a medical procedure. Much less messy, much faster healing time. They’ll both be conscious, just a little weak for a few days while they recover.”

A small sense of relief fluttered in me. As long as they were okay, I could get through this. With Kane by my side, I could do anything, and now he’d be by my side forever. I tried not to be too grateful for that fact. Certainly there’d be consequences to walking the shadow world.

Gwen reached out and grabbed my other hand. “It’ll be fine, Jade.”

I let out a slow breath. “What happens after the transfer?”

“The three of you will be sent back to New Orleans. I’ll be in touch.” Chessa spun on her heal and left the room.

“Okay, you three,” the technician said. “I’m going to count back from three. On one, you’ll start to feel the transfer. Three, two, one.”

Gwen sucked in a sharp breath at the same time that Kane’s fingers jerked in my hand. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying their pain would be over soon. My own experience had almost killed me.

My hands started to tingle, and a jolt suddenly raced through both limbs, shooting straight for my chest and then sinking lower, filling my torso. The two sparks collided, and my back arched right up off the table in a bone-jarring spasm. Ecstasy burst through me, heightening every last nerve ending with sweet pleasure.

“Jade!” I heard the faint cry, knew it must be Gwen, but I couldn’t respond. I was all but suspended over the table as pure magic filtered right into my soul. My eyes watered at the intensity of emotion running through me. Love, fear, overwhelming protectiveness, and determination.

Kane’s signature mixed with Gwen’s and then faded as the magic collided with my own soul, filling me up, making me vibrate with power. My soul pulsed in my gut, new, raw and powerful. The straps holding me in my chair slipped away and the room turned first white, then black, and then blinding.

I squinted into the sunlight, dampness seeping in through the knees of my jeans. The sweet scent of grass and damp earth invaded my senses.

“Jade?” This time it was Kane’s voice.

I turned my head toward the sound, blinking to clear my vision. As my eyes adjusted, I made out a large moss-filled oak tree and realized we were sprawled on an immaculately manicured lawn. The damp lawn and earthy scent indicated it had rained recently. Glancing around, I took in the large Victorian home. “What the hell?”

“We’ve been sent back to Summer House,” Kane said and lifted me to my feet.

A surge of power gripped me, and the world faded into various shades of gray. The shadows started to move, becoming more and more solid the longer we stood there. Near the base of the oak, movement caught my attention. The shadow morphed into a silhouette outline of a man and as I studied him, his round, pudgy face came into focus. He brought his hand up, tipping his bowler cap, and turned, walking directly through the trunk of the tree then disappearing into the earth.

“Let go!” I shouted at Kane and moved away.

Bright sunlight streamed back into my vision, and I let out a long sigh of relief. “Holy shit. I think I just got my first taste of what it means to be a shadowwalker.”

Kane’s face was white. “Wow.”

“You saw it, too?”

He nodded and moved toward me with his hand outstretched. But then he dropped it, his jaw tense with frustration.

My heart sank, and horror ran through me. Would this always happen when we touched? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sure we can learn to control it.” I said the words, knew I meant them, but everything was too raw for my heart to believe it.

“Yeah. I’m sure we will.” Kane’s voice shook.

“You will,” Gwen assured us.

I glanced her way, grateful to see she didn’t look near as shaken as Kane. “You’re okay?”

She nodded. “Tired. But I’ll survive.”

Tentatively, I put an arm around her. The panic running through me eased when my world didn’t shift. “Why did they send us here?”

The three of us headed toward the house. I eyed a silver Prius. “Bea’s here.”

“She’s not the only one.” Kane gestured toward a line of three familiar cars parked farther down the driveway.

“It’s the coven.” I took off in a sprint, heading for the back of the house. If they were working a spell…then it hit me. Coven magic jolted to life just below my heart, spurring me faster. It surged and waned like a faulty circuit. I
needed
to be in that circle, connected to them. Whatever they were doing, they were straining past their ability. If it wasn’t for Bea’s magic, they would’ve already failed.

I rounded the back of the house and almost came to an abrupt stop. In the middle of the circle, Camille was suspended, trapped in a smaller circle. Blue candles barely flickered to life below her. It was almost exactly the same setup Lailah had performed the day we’d tried to free Pyper of her black shadow.

When had they decided to do this? While we were in the angel realm?

What about Camille’s daughter?

Would helping her find the little girl put her soul to rest? There was no time to find out. The coven wouldn’t be performing the ritual on such short notice unless they felt they had no choice. Had Camille gotten worse? Whatever had happened, I had to help them.

The coven’s faltering power spiked back into action, and a moment later, I jumped into the circle, determined to do my part in sending Camille away.

Clasping hands with Bea and Rosalee, I savored the magic pouring into me and then through me and back into Bea. She took in a relieved breath but didn’t acknowledge my presence in any other way.

The blue candles burned taller and brighter, acting as Camille’s prison. The next step was to open a portal and banish her into another dimension. Only, as I gazed at her, my vision turned once again to the gray shadows.

My heart raced, and I glanced around for Kane. He was near the back door, observing, not even close to me. I sucked in a breath and studied the scene around me. Shadows moved, creeping toward the blue circle. A few grew into solid shapes, and one reached out hungrily grabbing at Camille. I suppressed a shudder. What were they? Why did they want her? If we banished her, would she become one of the faceless shadows?

Did I care? The memory of ice crawling up my limbs as Camille seized my body and Ian’s dazed, lust-filled face filled my mind. No, I didn’t.

“Goddess of the afterlife,” Bea cried into the wind, “hear our call! The ghost Camille is not for this world. Heed our sacrifice and take her where you will!”

The ground rumbled beneath our feet. A faint trace of fear ran through the coven collective.

“Stand strong!” Bea called. “The Goddess has responded.”

The ground continued to rumble. Two shadows morphed into solid form, their features becoming clearer with each passing moment. One was small, the size of a child, her face fresh and full of life. The other was Camille’s age, his expression set in anger. Something menacing streamed from him, curling around me, pressing on my skin.

I glanced around. Could anyone else see them? They were all chanting along with Bea as the ground slowly started to open just beneath Camille. Camille glanced down, her eyes wide, and then she latched onto my gaze. Fear rolled off her in waves. Heartbroken and terrified, tears spilled down her pale face.