Cain was silent as he walked me to my door, his brows drawn together. I looked up, up, up into his face. He looked worried. I hated that I’d put that look on his face.
“I’m sorry about this. I know that this wasn’t what you expected when Hope dropped me off at your shop.”
One side of his mouth tugged up in a sad smile. “None of this is your fault. Though, that reminds me of something. Hope rescued you, you said. From Purgatory?”
I just nodded warily. Hope’s secrets weren’t mine to tell.
“How’d she get there?”
I leaned against the doorjamb with a sigh. “Uriel.”
“And how’d she get out?”
This time I smiled. “She killed an angel, summoning the Angel of Death, who gave us a ride out of Purgatory.”
Cain blinked at me. Then he blinked again. He shook his head. “You keep some fucking weird company, Serendipity. Makes me wonder if your name is less of a monikker and more of a warning, you know?”
I laughed, and the sound echoed down the empty hallway. “I know. I gave it to myself a couple of thousand years ago. I don’t even remember the name I was born with.”
More blinking. Then he bent down, kissed my cheek softly. “Should have changed it to Trouble. Goodnight, Sera.”
Heat flooded to my face, and I wanted to pull him into my room and fuck him senseless. Up until twenty minutes ago, I’d been all but ready to go to bed with Solomon as he moved my body like it belonged only to him. Apparently my traitorous libido was hopped up on pregnancy hormones and any stick would do the trick. I pointedly ignored the fact that no matter how pretty Trigger was, he did nothing for me. I also ignored the niggling attraction I had to Goliath, the absolute psycho who looked like he wanted to carve out my heart and fuck the cavity it left behind.
Apparently, hormones also made me stupid.
I kicked the door shut and bolted it after last night's little impromptu nightmare party. I could deal with the dreams like I had for the last few months, with cold sweats and terror. I didn’t need my new guardian angels to fucking watch me sleep every night. I hated being this pathetic.
Water started leaking from my eyes again at the thought and I laid back on my bed, put the pillow over my face and screamed in frustration.
Eventually I must have dozed off, because I startled awake in the middle of the night. I looked around groggily, the thickness of the darkness telling me that it was the early hours of the morning and the clock on the bedside table confirming that it was three a.m. I struggled to drag myself from sleep, my rest not disturbed by nightmares for once.
A subtle thudding noise fought with the muted sound of the strip club, and at first I thought it was my heart until I realized it was a discordant rhythm. Slipping from bed, I walked over the window, looking through the bars to the parking lot.
Two shirtless bodies fought beneath the moonlight, the heavy crack of flesh against flesh echoing even up here. Whoever these two were, one of them was going to end up dead because they weren’t pulling their punches. They danced around each other, one with a distinct height advantage to the other. When one shifted to the left and the weak streetlight hit his face, I gasped. Goliath.
I realized the bars on the windows unbolted from the inside, and outside it was a fire escape. I couldn’t imagine that the building would be up to code if you could die in a literal barred room. Before I could think about it, I opened the window softly, and it swung back on silent hinges. I climbed through the window and onto the fire escape, the night chill lifting goosebumps on my legs and making me regret not grabbing my jeans first. I was still in Goliath’s shirt and my boyleg underwear which seemed respectable enough.
Someone grunted and my eyes drew back to the two fighters below me. Goliath fighting was a thing of beauty. He fought like his body was a weapon that he knew how to expertly wield, but whoever he was fighting could hold his own. I was climbing down the ladder before I registered my movements, drawn to the mesmerising brutality of the whole thing. I got to the last rung before I remembered that I wasn’t a lithe immortal right now. I was a heavily pregnant woman and that eight foot drop to the pavement suddenly seemed a lot more ominous.
Apparently I’d lost all my courage in Purgatory.
I began climbing back up, chastising myself for being such a dumbass when the rung creaked loudly, protesting my weight. The fighters stopped mid-punch, and when the second fighter turned around, I recognized Judas. He didn’t have an eyepatch on, the sewn up socket looking hollow and empty in the darkness.
He ran across the parking lot inhumanly fast and was standing beneath me in the space of a blink. “What the fuck are you doing?” he growled, and honestly, even though he was yelling at me, that growl was hot as hell.
“I saw you two out here fighting…”
“So you decided to climb down a forty year old fire escape that hasn’t been maintained since Richard Nixon was in office? Are you completely damn stupid?”
Looking down at him was giving me a touch of vertigo, but there was no way I was going to look away first. “What kind of President doesn’t maintain the fire escapes of his goddamn Clubhouse anyway? All it would take is one molitov cocktail or whatever it is gangbangers use and your whole MC would be wiped out.” If all else fails, deflect your stupidity onto someone else. That had to be in a handbook somewhere.
Judas huffed. Goliath had wandered over to stare daggers at me. “I hate women that always need saving.”
The knife of his words hit their target. I hated that I needed saving at all. Letting out a strangled sound, I climbed back up the ladder. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The ladder groaned again, and jerked downward. My foot slipped and then I was falling. Fuck!
I wrapped my body protectively around my middle, but it was literally in a single breath before I was landing on the hard ground.
Actually, it wasn’t all that hard. Then I opened my eyes and looked into furious grey ones. Goliath had caught me?
He looked disgusted with himself, and I struggled to breathe as I registered his strong arm banded around my chest, my face pressed to his bare chest. Fear and adrenaline and lust made my skin tingle, my breathing choppy. He slid me slowly to my feet, not letting go until I had my feet planted firmly on the ground. Like he cared if I fell.
His next words dispelled the idea that the giant was warming to me.
“I should’ve let you hit the pavement. I would have enjoyed the sound of your bones shattering.”
Then he shoved me gently back, Judas’ hand shooting out to steady me, and strode out of the parking lot without picking up his shirt. Judas watched him go with lowered brows. He looked pensive, trying to solve the riddle of Goliath’s actions too.
His eye flicked to me, and he looked angry all over again. “What were you thinking? Why are you here, endangering my Club, all the people who are my responsibility if you aren’t going to take any care of yourself?”
I didn’t have any excuse. I couldn’t tell him that their fighting was mesmerizing, that their combined power drew me closer and closer like I under some kind of compulsion. I swallowed hard, trying to choke down my pride. “I’m sorry.”
He sighed heavily and walked away from me to where he had his stuff in a haphazard pile beside the building. He pulled his shirt on, picked up Goliath’s and threw it at me. I caught it, bundling it in my hands in time to see him pull back on his eyepatch. He picked up a bottle of Jack and took a long swig.