She’d learned that particular lesson well. “Then let’s find him before he skips town.” Find him, get the brimstone bullets, and take out Brandt.

Simple enough plan. So why was her gut knotting with worry? Why did she feel like danger was just waiting to descend?

Because it was.

Az opened the door fully. Sunlight spilled inside the bar. The motorcycle waited outside. Az could probably just use his magic to zip then wherever they needed to go, but that traveling mode wasn’t exactly her preference. They had the motorcycle, so they could darn well use it—and she could avoid the aftereffects of feeling like she’d vomit after traveling.

So they hurried toward the motorcycle. Az had the engine growling in about two seconds. Three more seconds, and they were racing down the street.

Racing so fast that she almost missed the shadowy figure across the road. The tall, blond man who watched her and Az hurtle away.

The angel who’d come for her before. Bastion.

“Az!” She tried to shout out a warning to him, but the snarl of the motorcycle’s engine just ripped her cry away. Jade glanced back, her hands tightening on Az, but Bastion was gone.

“Is she gonna make it?” Tanner demanded as he stared down at the pale form on the bed.

A f**king angel. Tears had dried on her cheeks long ago. Her lips, trembling, were no longer breaking with cries of pain.

Her wings were gone. Cody was good, but the guy wasn’t a miracle worker. Her wings had been cut off, the skin on her back savaged. Cody had stitched her up, he’d drugged her so the pain would stop, but there wasn’t much else he’d been able to do.

Gone.

Tanner had known for years that his brother was a sadistic bastard, but . . . doing this? To an angel?

She lay on her stomach, with her face turned toward him. Thick, white bandages covered her back. He brushed his hand down her arm. He’d been touching her almost constantly, wanting to comfort the little blonde who’d bled and begged.

This shouldn’t have happened to her. This wasn’t her war.

It’s mine.

“She’ll heal,” Cody’s voice was quiet. “But from all the tales I’ve heard, those wings won’t be growing back.”

An angel’s skin could regenerate. Her torn muscles could mend. She’d recover from her blood loss. But, without her wings, she’d be trapped on earth.

“Az can give her his blood.” They’d be seeing the Fallen in just a few hours. “With his blood, she can—”

“We both know the blood loss isn’t going to kill her.” Cody glanced up with his pitch-black stare. Cody never bothered with glamour when it was just the two of them. Why pretend? Tanner knew exactly what his brother was.

He knew what both of his brothers were.

“His blood won’t make her wings grow back. Only a miracle can do that,” Cody said.

She looked so small. So weak. Not like some all-powerful immortal being right then.

Cody pulled out a pair of handcuffs from a black bag.

Tanner tensed. “What the hell are you doing with those?”

But his brother just reached for her right hand. “When she wakes up and shakes those drugs out of her system, she’s going to be pissed.”

“We saved her life! She’s not gonna be—”

“Our brother cut her wings off. He left her to die.” Cody snapped one cuff around her wrist and stretched her arm to lock the other end around the thin bedpost. “If she’s a Death Angel, all it will take is one touch to knock us both out of this world. You heard what Azrael said—we can’t let her touch us.”

Cody pulled out another set of cuffs.

“Since when do you carry around cuffs?” Tanner had a grip on her left hand, and he didn’t want to let go.

“They’re Other-proof, thanks to a sweet little voodoo queen I met in the bayou.” Cody held the cuffs loosely in his hand. “They’ll keep her hands off us until we can calm her down and help her to see reason.”

“Reason?” Tanner exhaled on a rough sigh and eased back so that Cody could snap the cuffs in place. “Our brother cut off her wings. There’s nothing reasonable in that.”

“No, there isn’t.”

Tanner straightened his shoulders. “You ever wonder . . . I mean, we’ve got the same blood. What if we—”

“Become twisted f**ks like him?”

He nodded.

“The day I do, that’s the day I want you to take me out.”

Tanner met Cody’s coal-black stare. He’d always known there was a darkness inside Cody. Demons and darkness went hand in hand.