Angel Blood

3- Angel's Ruin

I grunt, hating how my stomach squeezes as I anticipate him finishing the deed. The waiting game is always my least favorite part of my job. "Going to pull the trigger?"

He snorts, mouth curling with amusement. "You have a death wish, little monster?"

I scoff. That's rich coming from a literal creature of Hell. "No. But what's the point in getting to know me if I'm just going to be a splatter of blood on your shoe in a few minutes?"

He leans down until his face is parallel with mine, the span of his warm breath brushing against my lips. "Maybe I intend to keep you."

"I'd rather die."

His lips curl into a wicked grin. "That settles it then, angel."

The breath stills in my throat. "What?"

He leans forward, a strand of his dark hair tickling my cheek. "You're mine," he murmurs in my ear.

I rub the gooseflesh that scatter over my arms, staring blankly at him as he pulls back and takes a small foldable blade out of his pocket. Sinclair raises it to his forearm and I watch in morbid fascination as he cuts a line across his tattooed arm. The inked creature shifts over his skin as if trying to avoid the sharpened tip.

"Why?" I don't bother trying to run. The barrel of his gun hangs at his side and I know he could raise it at any second, but something tells me he wouldn't even need to do that much to subdue me. So I just sit there, skin crawling as the dried blood cakes to my arms and chest, wondering why he doesn't just end me.

He takes a step forward, squatting down until his face is parallel with mine and the warmth of his breath spans over my lips. His stormy eyes spark, mouth curling in a wicked grin. "Because I'm going to ruin you."

He takes my hand in his, giving it a sharp squeeze as I instinctively try and jerk it away.

"What are you doing?" I whisper, sucking in a breath as he raises the blade and makes a shallow cut along my palm. Without responding, he presses my bloodied hand to the open wound against his forearm.

I don't get the chance to ponder how horrifying the entire ordeal is. He's already murmuring a rhythmic chant that causes the air between us to buzz with invisible power.

"Sanguine ad sanguinem quod meum est tuum usque putavit esse."

I try and jerk my hand away as the serpent moves against his skin, curling itself around where my flesh meets his as if it wants to crawl onto my skin.

He gives me another warning squeeze. I wince as the motion causes more blood to trickle from my open wound.

"Blood to blood, what's mine is yours until deemed be."

A choked cry escapes my throat as something wiggles under my skin. It's red hot, a wriggling pain that emerges from my bones and travels through muscle and sinew as if trying to tear its way out of my body. Gradually, black markings rise to the top of my skin—a small, slender snake that winds herself around my forearm.

He lets me snatch my arm away, looking on as I watch in horror as the serpentine blinks one flattened eye at me in greeting.

"Shit," I claw at my skin, panic making my breaths short in my throat. She writhes around my nails as if the action pains her. "What did you do to me?"

"Made you mine," he says easily.

I stare at him, wondering if he'll catch my fists as easily as before if I try and take another swing at him.

"What?"

He doesn't respond, watching me with an intent expression that reveals I'm nothing more to him than a pet for his amusement. Even as my lip curls and I spit at his feet, his mouth tugs upward like the hate that's scrawled plainly across my face is entertaining to him.

Perhaps the weakness has gone to my brain or it's the cold fury brewing in my veins, but my gun looks especially tempting at his side. Without thinking, I'm reaching to pull it out of his grip.

It's a slow and lazy effort but he lets me take it from him nonetheless. He snorts, looking bored as he stares into the barrel like he's daring me to pull the trigger.

"Even if that worked, it wouldn't do you any good now, angel."

I still, gun trembling in my hand. Something glimmers in his eyes. A wry satisfaction that he holds something over my head—something that's going to fuck me over ten times sideways. "What are you talking about?"

"You can let your self-righteous brethren know that if I die, so do you."

I have to remind myself to take a breath. Somehow I feel like I'm going to vomit and pass out all at once when it dawns on me—the aura of power, the sense of commandment he holds over others.

The ritual wasn't just a load of cursing and demonic bullshit to scare me. No, it's something that I hadn't even thought was in his power. Something only a demon created directly by the hand of the devil could be capable of.

I can't tell what's worse: the fact that Sinclair Black has just bound my life to his or that I don't think my 'family' will care when deciding his fate.