Read Online Sins of the Angels by Linda Poitevin - Free Book Online

serial case, but I’m willing to do so. If you cut the crap.” She met his eyes squarely. “So. Truce?”
    Aramael stared at the hand she held out to him and, in the space of a single heartbeat, a single sharp inhale, felt reality shift beneath his feet. Shift, and then turn inside out as the Naphil he’d been sent to protect became the very center of his universe.
    He stepped back from the woman, struggling to regain his bearings. An ache began, low in his belly, spread outward to claim his entire being, became a desire to reach out to her and make himself complete. For an instant, he hovered on an unfamiliar, dangerous edge, and the universe itself seemed to hold its breath.
    Then an entirely new survival instinct surfaced, screaming at him to put space and time—however inadequate—between himself and Alex Jarvis. Space to buffer him from feelings he couldn’t have; time to recover from having those feelings in spite of their impossibility. He obeyed without question, turning on his heel and striding out of the alley’s confines, his jaw clenched and his fingers curled so tightly inside his pockets that his forearms went into spasms. He forced himself to focus on each measured step, trying to put his head together, to figure out what in all of creation had just happened.
    Because angels didn’t feel what he’d just felt.
    Not ever.
    And sure as hell not about a Naphil.
    Aramael arrived at the car and then tensed anew at the sound of firm footsteps behind him. The stitching around his pockets threatened to give way, and for the first time in his existence, he felt the damp of perspiration across his forehead. The footsteps halted. With no escape and no other choice, Aramael turned and met the woman’s seething glower. Several threads popped against his fists.
    â€œRight,” his charge greeted him tightly. “Obviously you have a problem. Care to share it?”
    He had no reply.
    â€œDamn it, Trent—” A trill interrupted the woman. She hesitated, seeming torn between answering the cell phone at her waist and finishing what Aramael was sure he didn’t want to hear. To his everlasting relief, she chose the phone. “Jarvis.”
    Distracted by the call, the woman crossed the few steps to join him beside the vehicle. She braced her elbows on the car roof and leaned her forehead into one hand, her sleeve whispering against Aramael’s arm.
    The ache exploded, scattering its searing fragments throughout his body, spreading until it claimed every corner of his being as its own. Then, before Aramael had recovered from the first blow, the woman flipped her phone closed and turned to him, and her lingering annoyance turned to alarm.
    â€œTrent? Are you all right?”
    He saw her reach for him. Knew he should pull away. Knew he couldn’t allow her to touch him. Too much happened inside him, too much that left him raw and out of balance and entirely uncertain of his ability to control himself.
    But his new instinct for self-preservation seemed to have deserted him, and he could do nothing but watch in mixed fascination and dread as Alexandra Jarvis’s hand came to rest on his arm. Stand, frozen, as her eyes widened and the curtain of angelic illusion between them thinned once more.
    Â 
    ALEX JERKED HER hand from Trent’s arm, but too late.
    Energy jangled through her, unstoppable, unfettered. Making her see again that which could not be. A man who looked as shell-shocked as she felt, and who was possessed of wings rising from his back.
    Magnificent, powerful, golden wings.
    Panic twisted in Alex’s gut. She stumbled backward, recoiling from Trent—and from her own reaction. Most of all her reaction. She did not see wings, and she sure as hell didn’t feel myriad emotions woven into the brief touch they had shared, either here or in the office. Didn’t feel those emotions vying for her attention, each as improbable as the one