Page 51 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

He tilted his head. “Why are you so angry with me?”

“Because you used me,” she snapped over her shoulder while walking back to her car. “Because you tell me to forget you exist, then you vanish in the middle of the night—”

“Angela—”

“No, you listen.” She pointed without looking back, as if she were cross-examining him in a courtroom she’d built in her head. “I’d spent hours keeping you alive. I gave you my bed and cleaned up that smell polluting my house. And you put teeth marks in my favorite belt.” She tapped her waist. “Then you leave without even a simple thank you, like it was a bad one-night stand you’d regret for the next nanosecond. Oh, wait, you left something at my place, that’s why you’re here? Or do you want to confess your stalker-ish behavior? By all means, the church is over there. Don’t let me get in your way. I’m leaving, and you can go—”

“Not without you,” he repeated, firmer.

“Over my dead body.” Angela hurried her pace with her head down, determined to get in her car and leave, to pretend she hadn’t just threatened a man who looked like a fallen angel in a cemetery.

Only to stop fast.

Three men stood near her car, wearing the same black leather like Zarek’s, armed to the teeth. They were not the typical crowd who belonged in a church parking lot, that’s for sure.

With a shiver of fear so cold, she held her breath in case she exhaled frost. “Who—”

“Don’t be afraid.” Instantly, Zarek was close behind her. She could feel his body heat. “They’re my brothers. They’re here to protect you.”

“Protect me from what? You?” Her pulse picked up as her eyes widened like a caged animal looking for the nearest exit.

“The Black Cloak you killed last night has gained their leader’s attention. And they’re looking for the source. You.”

The memory of that rotten, burning smell made the invisible marks around her throat feel like ice; she struggled to swallow.

And then, like a tide turning, her fear eased. Her heartbeat steadied.

Angela pinned him with her best back-off glare. “Are you doing that? That calming thing?”

“I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“Stop it.” She clenched her fists and pushed at the calm. It lifted, as if she’d yanked a curtain open.

Zarek narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you do that?”

“None of your business.” She honestly didn’t know what she had done. But her foul mood was back, so she stomped towards her car, refusing to look at the armed men so tall they’d have to duck into a house. The blond guy had a set of arms on him that would make him walk sideways though some doorways. They’d make a bar full of bearded, inked-up bikers into nothing more than a bunch of harmless Christmas elves compared to Zarek and his crew.

“Angela.” Zarek caught her arm, pulling her to a stop.

“Don’t grab me.”

“We need to speak to you. My brothers believe you have a power that puts you at risk.”

“No, I don’t.” She jerked her arm free. “Whatever power you think I have is nothing but a figment of your imagination. I’m normal.”

“The Black Cloaks will come for you.” Zarek’s gaze flicked down to her new medallion then back up to her eyes.

“Then go hunt them. Isn’t that what you do?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is. When we all know fortune cookies lie when they say life is simple.” She turned away and headed for her car, suddenly in the mood for Chinese food.

Zarek inhaled slowly, then said, “Your aunt calls them gifts.”

Angela stopped dead.

Sure, it’s what Claudine always said, even Father Michael did, too. But it was the way Zarek wielded her family’s words that finally snapped her restraint. Because he was invading her privacy, again, while here at the church when she’d told no one she was coming here. Was he seriously stalking her?