Fractured Souls by Ava Marie Salinger

5

“Jesus, Morgan! You nearly killed him!”Adrianne snarled.

Morgan clenched his jaw and kept silent, his gaze on the unconscious man lying opposite where he and the sorceress sat in the back of the van taking them downtown.

The other Argonaut agents had chosen to ride in the second vehicle, even though they’d had to cram inside. If Adrianne and Morgan’s expressions hadn’t been enough to deter them, then Cassius Black’s presence had.

The demon cat they’d found in Cassius’s apartment was currently perched protectively on the motionless angel’s chest, its yellow eyes radiating pure loathing as it glowered at Morgan and Adrianne.

Morgan could hardly blame it. Just as he couldn’t explain why he’d done what he’d done in Cassius’s apartment to Adrianne and their subordinates.

Cassius Black was infamous not just among the otherworldly, but among humans too. The Cursed Angel with the Black Wings. The Devil Who Walks Amongst Us. The Possessed Fallen. He was known by many names, some more unpleasant than others. Although the angel had never committed a crime that justified the degree of hostility and distrust directed at him, he had been involved in enough troubling incidents over the centuries to be labeled a dangerous liability by most people.

Remorse stabbed through Morgan as he gazed upon Cassius’s pale face. He’d chosen to let Adrianne and the other Argonaut agents believe that it was news of the human sacrifice they’d discovered last night that had made him fly into a fit of rage. And it was, partly.

Two months had passed since he and his team had been assigned the case of the mysterious human deaths that had been taking place over San Francisco. All were attributed to black-magic rituals. They were still nowhere near finding the who and the why behind the sacrifices.

But that wasn’t the sole reason Morgan had been overcome by the strength of his feelings when he’d heard Cassius’s name. It had been a gut instinct borne from the very depths of his soul. One underscored by bitter resentment. He couldn’t tell Adrianne that, in that moment, he’d just wanted to lash out at Cassius. To tear into the angel for a reason he still couldn’t explain. A reason he was beginning to suspect might have something to do with why he barely slept most nights.

Morgan had multiple bed partners not because he was addicted to sex, but because the slumber he fell into after making love was often dreamless. Unfortunately, his stamina far outdid that of the men and women he bedded, hence why he rarely had the same partner on consecutive nights.

“Hey, you okay?” Adrianne asked.

The sorceress was frowning at his fisted hands.

Morgan grimaced. He’d clenched them so hard he was close to drawing blood.

“Yeah.” He sighed and raked his hair with his fingers. “I’m sorry about what happened back there.”

“Well, this case has all of us jumpy as hell,” his second-in-command murmured, her eyes darting to Cassius. “Still, I’ve never seen you lose your shit like that before.”

Morgan studied the unconscious man. She’s right. And now, it looks like we have another headache on our hands.

Despite meeting Cassius for the first time, Morgan couldn’t help but sense that they were connected in some way. He’d felt it the moment his powers had touched the angel. Though it had lasted but seconds, Morgan had experienced an oddly familiar resonance when their soul cores had come into contact. The animosity he’d initially felt toward the other angel had faded, only to be replaced by intense curiosity.

I wonder what that’s about.

Morgan stiffened.

Cassius was finally stirring.

Color returned to the angel’s striking face as he blinked his eyes open. He stared at the ceiling of the van for a moment before shifting his body on the bench. Metal jangled as he moved. He froze and looked at his hands.

Stark Steel handcuffs were locked around his wrists, securing him to a metal bolt in the floor of the van via a chain. Stark Steel was the strongest and most magic-resistant element in existence. It was found exclusively in the weapons and armor of the angels and demons who’d fallen to Earth five hundred years ago. It was also the only element that could inflict mortal wounds on angels beside Dark Blight, a poison that could incapacitate angels and which was used exclusively by black-magic users in their rituals and spells. Rain Silver, a liquid-silver derivative, was similarly toxic to demons.

Anger turned Cassius’s gaze a stormy gray as he glared at Morgan and Adrianne. He sat up slowly, mindful of the cat that landed in his arms. Morgan observed the feline where it huddled against Cassius’s chest and fought the insane urge to rip it from the angel’s hold and take its place.

I am losing my fucking mind.

The stirring in Morgan’s groin told him it wasn’t his mind doing the thinking right now. Cassius Black was drop-dead gorgeous and everything Morgan liked in a man. He’d felt the instant spark of attraction between them when they’d met a short while ago, on their respective penthouse terraces.

Despite Cassius’s bad-tempered attitude, it was clear he’d sensed it too. It had not just been his dick that had betrayed him. The way his eyes had darkened to molten slate and the hint of color that had stained his cheekbones had been a dead giveaway too.

“Where the hell am I?” Cassius growled.

“In a van,” Morgan said blithely.

Adrianne glanced at Morgan with a frown.

“We’re on our way to the local Argonaut Agency bureau,” she told Cassius gruffly. Her gaze flickered to the cat. “So, does demon kitty have a name?”

A muscle danced in Cassius’s jawline. He hugged the creature close to his chest and stayed mutinously silent.

Morgan swallowed a sigh. Lucky cat.

They pulled into an underground garage beneath the agency’s San Francisco branch office a short while later. Adrianne unlocked Cassius’s cuffs from the chain and was about to fasten the spare bracelet to her left wrist when Morgan stopped her.

“Let me.”

Surprise flashed briefly in the sorceress’s eyes. She passed him the handcuff wordlessly. The look Cassius gave Morgan as he shackled them together would have turned a lesser man into a bloodied stain on the ground. Morgan bit back a smile, not quite sure why the current situation amused him so.

Brightness flared briefly in Cassius’s pupils. “What’s so funny, asshole?!”

Morgan kept a straight face by a sheer act of will. “Nothing.”

Cassius glowered at him. He glanced around warily as they stepped down from the van. Four Argonaut agents fell into step around them as they headed for a bank of elevators. Ten seconds later, Morgan started to heavily regret their presence. The tension inside the cabin they rode was so thick he could have cut the air with his dagger. Bar Adrianne and him, the Argonaut agents did nothing to mask their obvious hostility toward Cassius. The way their fingers occasionally twitched told Morgan they would happily shoot the angel if he so much as breathed the wrong way.

Relief flooded Morgan as they came out into the agency’s main office space, on the tenth floor of the high rise. It was short-lived.

A deadly hush descended in the bullpen when the men and women gathered there registered the unwelcome stranger in their midst.

“Hey, isn’t that—?” a female agent hissed sideways to a colleague.

Zakir Singh – an Asian man with a scar running across his left eye and down his face – spat on the floor and earned himself half a dozen scowls.

“Cassius Black,” he said in a voice dripping with contempt.

“Hey, I hope you’re gonna clean that up, dickwad,” Bailey Green told him. The wizard spun a rune-covered dagger on his knuckles as he narrowed his eyes at the other agent.

“Wow,” Cassius murmured sardonically. “I can literally feel the love in the air.”

Morgan sighed. He couldn’t exactly come up with a riposte against the angel’s sarcasm in the face of the Argonaut agents’ open resentment.

“It might be a good idea not to antagonize them,” he said instead.

He might as well have asked Cassius to perform a sexual act in public from the incredulous look the angel gave him.

Bailey’s gaze shifted curiously to Cassius before moving to Morgan and Adrianne. “You guys are here awfully early. I thought our meeting was at nine.”

Adrianne frowned. “Something came up. Get your ass out of that chair and come with us.”

Even though his abilities as a wizard more than matched Adrianne’s powers as a sorceress, Bailey lifted his feet off his desk and meekly obeyed her command.

“I think he’s still hoping to get back in your pants,” Morgan told Adrianne as they headed down a corridor lined with offices and conference rooms, a stony Cassius and the curious demon cat between them.

“The only way that’s ever gonna happen is over my cold, dead body,” the sorceress retorted.

“I’m right here, you guys,” Bailey protested behind them.