Angel's Pain Read Free

got…distracted.”
    â€œA boy came?”
    Her nod was slow, her gaze turning inward. “He comes all the time,” she whispered, almost to herself.
    â€œIn the real world, Crisa, or is he in your head, too?”
    â€œIn my head. But not like the man. I can see the boy. I can feel him. He’s more like a dream.” She squeezed her eyes tighter. “It hurts, Briar!”
    â€œOkay. Okay, come on, let’s get you inside.”
    â€œYou’re not mad?”
    â€œNo, you nutcase. Why would I be mad? It’s not your fault you’ve got a party going on in that head of yours, is it?”
    â€œN-no.”
    â€œI’ll bet Roxy can help you out with that headache, if you want. She and Ilyana are all into all that hocus-pocus shit. Healing with their hands. I imagine it makes ’em feel like a little bit more than plain old mortals.”
    â€œThey’re not plain. They’re Chosen.”
    â€œStill, a mortal’s a mortal’s a mortal, right?”
    Crisa nodded, the movement choppy as they moved down the hall. “Will Reaper be mad?”
    â€œNo one’s mad, okay?” Briar sought to reassure her, and then decided to add a little enlightenment to boot. Hell, it couldn’t hurt. “Besides,” she said, “what do you care if anyone is mad at you? Toughen up, Crisa. If someone gives you crap, you give it right back and then some. Understand?”
    Crisa looked at her and smiled just a little. “Yeah. I’ll give it right back.”
    â€œDamn straight you will. You’ve got a little bit of my blood in your veins, after all. You go wimping out, it’s going to pack up and move.”
    Briar opened the door at the end of the hall and, still holding Crisa’s arm, led the other woman into the apartment. The building was abandoned but was still basically habitable. The bunch of them, Reaper and his misfit gang of fledgling vamps, had headed north from Mexico, traveling cautiously, taking their time. Princess Topaz had volunteered her Emerald Isle mansion for them to use as a temporary base while they planned their next moves in the ongoing hunt for Gregor, the murderous rogue, and his gang. But Reaper wanted to take his sweet time getting there, just to be sure the CIA bastards who’d been jonesing for him were no longer following. Sure, the two agents who’d been on his ass most recently were crowbait by now. But there were others out there, watching.
    This run-down hovel was in Atlanta, and it reminded Briar, with a little jab, of times in her life she would much rather forget. When she’d lived on the streets, places like this had been home to her. Yeah. Home, sweet home.
    The others were just coming to life in various parts of the apartment. Sundown had been recent. They’d only just risen and begun gathering up their things to continue the journey north. Most of them, anyway, Briar saw, noticing that Jack and Topaz were nowhere in evidence. They were probably going at it like a pair of horny rabbits. Again.
    And Topaz’s movie-star legend of a mother, Mirabella, was likely still lying in bed, in typical Hollywood starlet fashion. Just because she automatically woke at sunset, like every other vampire, didn’t mean she felt any need to get her ass up and moving.
    Vixen and Seth stood close to one another, shoving clothes into a backpack, rubbing and touching often, their eyes saying way more than Briar wanted or needed to hear from either of them. Sickening.
    â€œRoxy,” Briar said, averting her thoughts from the others to the matter at hand. “Crisa has a pretty severe headache. You think you and Ilyana can work some of that shit you do on her and fix her up?”
    â€œThat shit we do is Reiki,” Roxy replied. She whirled to face Briar as she spoke, and it created a great effect with the scarlet patterned kaftan she wore. It swirled like a cloak, and her wild red curls moved just as