Entanglement

“What the fuck do you even call that?” Dante asked after several moments of stunned silence.

Azlynn looked offended, hugging her wings tighter around her body. “Whatever you want, I suppose,” she said bitterly. “Most people prefer freak or abomination.”

“No, no, no.” Dante shook his head. “Definitely not the words I would use. You’re like an entire Penthouse forum all wrapped up in one person.” His eyes roved over her wings, admiring the way they faded from midnight black to snowy white. Her skin seemed to give off a faint glow; like she was wrapped in starlight. Her violet eyes were distinctly not human; they were like cat’s eyes, oval-shaped with narrow pupils.

He started imagining what she had hidden behind those soft wings, and a wicked smile lit up his face. Azlynn seemed to sense what he was thinking and rolled her eyes.

“How is that even possible?” Miller asked. “I took a lot of magic and myth studies in college; demons and angels aren’t supposed to be able to have children.”

“My mother is the leader of the Guardian Angels,” Azlynn said dully. “She was captured by Leviathan while trying to rescue a human prophetess from a horde of demons. Leviathan ripped her Grace away; which left her practically human. He…used her until Gabriel and some of the other angels were able to rescue her. They returned her Grace to her but she was already pregnant with me. The current assumption is, that when she was in her almost-human state her body was capable of producing a child with a demon.”

Azlynn’s gaze was shadowed and her voice was hollow as she gave her explanation.

“I’m sorry about what he did to your mother,” Dante said, and he meant it. “But I’m…glad you’re here.”

“Your own personal Penthouse forum?” Azlynn asked, throwing him a haughty look.

“Yes, actually. If you want to call yourself mine.” He grinned. Azlynn shot him a scathing look, then jerked her chin slightly. Dante was suddenly suspended upside-down in the air. “Hey!”

“Would you like me to put you down?” Azlynn asked sweetly.

“Yes, I want you to put me down! Jesus, woman!”

“Okay.”

“But not-” He landed on his face on the asphalt with a dull thud. “-on my head,” he groaned into the ground.

“Oops, sorry.”

“Damn woman,” he grumbled, climbing to his feet and brushing the dirt off his clothes. “Okay, so now that we have temporarily un-fucked the situation, what do we do?”

“We go back to town and let Will know what happened,” Miller said.

“Right, let’s go back to the town that’s crawling with those fuckers.” Dante scoffed. He gave Miller a sarcastic thumbs-up. “That sounds like a great idea.”

“We don’t really have a choice, DeMarco,” Miller replied evenly. “Now get your dragon behind in your car and drive.”

“You gonna spot me for gas?” Dante asked sheepishly. Miller shot him a dirty look.

“Um, I hate to interrupt, but I need a shirt before we go anywhere,” Azlynn said, her cheeks flushing a delicate shade of pink. “I lost mine.”

“Awesome.” Dante perked up, really wishing she would move her damn feathers. Azlynn gave him an acid glare. “Shirt. Now.”

“Oh come on,” he protested. “It’s not like it’s anything I haven’t seen before.”

“How charming.” Azlynn wrinkled her nose primly. Then she smirked. “And trust me, DeMarco, they are nothing like anything you’ve seen before.”

“Oh, that’s just cruel,” Dante groaned.

“Shirt, Dante.”

“All right, all right. Here.” He shed his leather jacket, handing it over to her. “We’re on a first name basis now?”

“Unless you would prefer me to call you asshole,” she quipped, disappearing behind the SUV to put his jacket on.

“A lot of people do,” he said cheerfully. Azlynn emerged a moment later, her wings hidden once again and his jacket zipped up nearly to her chin.

“Curse the prudish bastard that ever invented the zipper,” he muttered as they walked back to the Charger.

“Well I wouldn’t want you to lose concentration and run off the road,” Azlynn said, sliding into the passenger seat.

“What are you talking about? My concentration would be spot-on.”

“You’re shameless, do you know that?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Yes I do.”

“Just drive the car,” she instructed, but there was a faint smile on her face. Dante started the car and followed Miller and Charlotte as they got back into the SUV and drove down the highway. Dante whistled a song under his breath, and a smile crept over his face.

“What are you smiling about?” Azlynn asked suspiciously after several minutes, her eyes narrowed at him.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Dante. You know it’ll never work.”

“Can you read minds?” he teased.

“On occasion, when I want to,” she said casually. “But I’m rather afraid to enter yours. I’ll probably never find my way back out.”

“It’s possible. But if you’re ever going to take a peek in there, I’m gonna have to ask for ID.”

“Cute. Now what are you smiling about?”

“I’m just happy,” he said, smiling at her. Her eyes narrowed further. “Dante…”

He chuckled. “Oh, what, you’re not?” he teased.

“No, I’m not. Because some jerk face keeps smiling like he just won the lottery or something, and it’s freaking me out, and he won’t tell me what he’s smiling about,” she shot back.

“I’m thinking we should pull over on some deserted back road, and find out just why Dodge made the backseat so big.”

“Dante!” she shrieked, smacking him on the back of the head.

“Hey, you asked,” he said, massaging his scalp. They rode in silence for a while; Dante kept sneaking sideways glances at Azlynn. She stared out the window, one hand propping up her chin and the other resting on her thigh.

“Does this thing have air conditioning?” she asked suddenly.

“Nope,” Dante replied. “Wasn’t an option with the four-forty six pack.” He glanced over at her. “Why?”

“It’s getting kind of hot in here,” she muttered, gesturing to the thick leather jacket.

“Well roll down the window.”

Sighing, Azlynn rolled down the passenger side window and unzipped his jacket a little.

“What are you doing?” Dante asked curiously.

“I’m hot,” she said defensively.

“Well I’m aware of that,” he said. He tried to shift in his seat, so that he could still watch the road but watch her more closely at the same time. She scowled at him. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Why not?” He arched his eyebrow at her, his lips twitching up in a half-smile. Azlynn crossed her arms and made a face at him. He shifted in his seat again, facing the road. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Azlynn smile slowly, a wicked gleam coming into her eyes. Before he could react, she had undone her seatbelt and scooted across to the middle seat, so that her breasts were pressed against his side.

“What are you doing?” he asked. Dante’s hands jerked on the wheel, the tires skidding over the rumble strip that divided the lanes. He quickly righted the car, pulling back into his own lane. Azlynn laughed in his ear. “Am I making you nervous?” she teased.

“No,” Dante stammered. “I’m fine.” He gripped the wheel tightly, his heart starting to hammer against his rib cage. Azlynn smirked, gently pressing her lips against his neck.

Someone please get me the fuck off this freeway, he thought desperately.

“Azlynn, what the hell are you doing?” he asked again.

“Oh, nothing,” she mumbled against his neck. Dante stomped the brakes, jerking the car to the side to avoid missing the exit that Miller had just taken. He cursed under his breath. Snickering quietly, Azlynn drew back, settling herself back into her own seat.

“I told you to keep your eyes on the road,” she said in a low voice.

“My eyes were on the road,” he said. “My thoughts, however, were not.”

Azlynn propped her bare feet up on the dashboard, looking smug.

“What was that all about?” he asked, staring at her incredulously. She shrugged. Dante’s eyes skimmed across her legs where her pajama pants had ridden up, admiring how smooth her skin looked. Then he blinked, realizing that her feet were scuffing his dashboard. He stretched one hand out toward the dash, eyes wide. “Feet…dash…no,” he said pathetically. Azlynn looked at him blankly as they followed Miller into the parking lot behind the safe house. After rubbing his hands over his face and swallowing back the urge to cry over the scuff marks on his dashboard, he and Azlynn climbed out of the car to find Miller talking on his cell phone.

“Yeah, everyone’s fine, Will. We’re at the safe house now; you should probably come down here.”

Charlotte eyed Azlynn warily as they approached, and even Miller seemed to be watching her carefully out of his peripheral vision as he talked to Lawson. The orange-haired nerd let them into the building and they made their way back to the room where they had first received their assignments.

“What a night,” Miller sighed.

“You have no fucking idea, dude,” Dante muttered, flopping into a seat beside him, running his fingers through his hair and trying to straighten the wrinkles in his shirt.

“What happened to you?” Miller asked.

“I don’t know, but I need either a cigarette or a drink.”

Miller frowned in confusion. “We have soda and coffee,” he said.

“Let me put it this way: Miller, I may need to borrow your handcuffs..”

Miller was about to reply when the door opened and a disgruntled Lawson walked in. Charlotte sat down on the other side of Miller, and after a moment Azlynn took a seat on the other side of the table from everyone else.

“So what do you need to tell me?” Lawson asked.

“We found out that Morrison is working for the True Form Society,” Miller said darkly. “He’s a Dark Mage. He sent a group of supernatural monsters to try and kill us at the house. Then he attacked us on the road.”

“We also now know that McNitt isn’t the head honcho, like we thought,” Charlotte added. “He’s working under a demon. A demon who is Az-”

“Especially powerful,” Azlynn interrupted, shooting Charlotte a warning glare. “He’s a very high-ranking demon, and for some reason he’s heading the True Form Society.”

Lawson heaved a long sigh. “I’m really starting to think we’re in over our heads here.”