Whiskey Witches by F.J. Blooding (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕

s’omach’s affecting my ‘egs.”

“And your mouth’s broke?”

“Her body will be fine,” Xael said. “Traveling with angels is somewhat discomforting to humans. Currently, her nervous system is not working properly. It will right itself.”

Dexx pulled away to give Paige an are-you-shitting-me look.

“Eventually.”

“We should not be here,” Raphael said.

“She’s your charge.” Xael walked toward Paige and Dexx. “Your job is to protect her—”

“As I was trying to do.”

“—not hide her.”

“Pro’ect me?” Paige raised her head. Her tongue felt as though it were three times its original size. “From wha’?”

Raphael’s lips tightened.

Xael sent him a suffering smile. “The child needs to know.”

“The child needs—”

“—instruction, like those before her.”

Raphael straightened, his angular face brightening. His jaw muscles ticked.

Dexx tightened his hold on her. “Neither one of you are making any sense. If you don’t have a point or purpose for being here, maybe you could leave. Leaving would be nice.”

Paige pushed out of Dexx’s arms and stumbled toward the inn. Her limbs were too heavy. It was exhausting to breathe. She needed a nap. A long one. “If what you have to say goes along something like, ‘You need to find your way back to the Lord,’ you can stuff it.” She nearly toppled over. “Hey, I can talk again.”

“Hey.” Dexx took her arm. “Congrats. Now, if your legs would work.”

“Shut up.”

“Stop,” Raphael commanded.

Paige was in no mood to be commanded. She’d just hared off in search of Sven, found Sven, and had been nearly overtaken by demons and Sven. She still had no idea where the frelling key was. If that wasn’t bad enough, some monkey-jerk of an asshole angel had shoved his freaking hand into her chest to use her gift. She wasn’t in the fucking mood.

Xael released a long sigh.

Paige’s head smacked into an invisible wall, followed closely by her foot, then her entire body. “What the—”

Dexx used his fingers to test the limits of this new obstacle. His fingertips whitened as he pressed against it. “It’s solid.”

Paige stood up a little straighter and faced Xael. “All right. In thirty words or less. I need a nap.”

The angel stared at some point above her head with his pitch black eyes. “He created the demon talkers. It’s his job to keep you safe and to instruct you in the ways of the demon talkers. He—”

“Your thirty words are up,” Dexx interrupted.

Xael’s expression went flat. “I had six more.”

Paige held up her hand, staring at Raphael. “Hold up. You created demon summoners?”

The archangel gnashed his teeth, looking away. “Demon talkers. Never summoners.”

“Okay. Then if you created me, then why did the angels help my mother take Leah?”

“You misused your gift,” Raphael said fiercely. “This is not what I created your line for.”

What a pompous…asshat! She crossed her arms over her chest. “I misused my gift? I misused my gift? Huh, right. Okay. Then what did you create us for?”

“You realize,” Dexx said, clenching his fist, his expression neutral, “that you’re inviting him into a conversation that’s well over thirty words long.”

She quirked her lips at him. What little patience she’d had was long gone. Her leg tingled with sensation. She applied full weight to it. Angel travel. Never again.

“Also ,” Dexx continued, “that tone of voice? Danger, Will Robinson. Tread carefully.”

Thunder rolled over Raphael’s angular features. “I created you to control the demons, not to summon them. Not to let them lose. They are to be punished and used as I will it.”

A chuckle burst out of her. She twisted away, letting her arms fall to her sides. “Oh. Oh. Oof. Oh. Oh, man. Wow. Shit. Wow.” Laughter bubbled forth as she rounded on him. “As—oh-ho. As he wills it. Oh, man. So, I’m a shovel.”

Dexx took a step back, raising a finger at Raphael. “I warned you.”

“But she laughs.” Xael’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“False advertisement. Trust me. She’s pissed. Pissed. Stop saying stupid things.”

“Why?” Raphael flexed his shoulders, shadows of his wings popping into existence. “She is a woman. I fear no one.”

Dexx took another step back. “Your death wish, dude.”

Paige ran her tongue in her cheek, allowing Dexx’s banter to continue, to buy her time to figure out what she needed to say. What did she need to know? This entire time, her entire life, she thought she was a byproduct of demony stuff, but now? A tool for the angels? Really? She opened her mouth, pinching the corners together with her thumb and forefinger, before releasing them with a pop. “You mean my great grandmother was a spy for the angels? Is that why she went insane?”

“It is not easy to be the demon talker,” Raphael said. “It was never meant to be.”

Paige’s lips rounded.

“Each time a demon talker came into existence,” Xael said, crossing his arms over his chest, “he would send one of us to instruct. Usually me.”

Paige shook her head. “So why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you tea—”

“I did,” Raphael said through gritted teeth.

“I think I’d remember.”

“Why do you question me?”

“Why?” The question exploded from her chest. “Why? My life was ruined because of you, because of your stupid need to fuck with my life, because I wasn’t good enough—”

“You are not.”

Paige stopped in shocked surprise.

Dexx’s lip curled. “You want to repeat that?”

“You became an agent of the enemy,” the archangel said, his voice calm. “You sided with them, worked with them. Gabriel and the Lady Rachel are well within their right to protect Leah.”

“To destroy my life because you failed me?”

The archangel flinched.

“Why? How?”

“Why?” Xael asked. “Why did we decide to use humans who are obviously inferior?”

That wasn’t the why she’d asked, but it was a good one anyway. She balled her anger in her fists and ground her teeth.

“Demons use the pathway to the soul,” Xael said.

Dexx raised his eyebrows. “And, what, you can’t?”

“We can.” Xael ran his tongue along his lower lip. “We usually destroy the soul when we do.”

“Wow.” Paige bared her teeth and concentrated on the lake behind the angels. “Now I see why you’re so jealous of the demons.”

Xael smiled in surprise. “Jealous?”

“Humans are weak.” Raphael’s eyes flared, a golden light shining through for a single moment. “We have other agents inside. Having a human demon talker is merely convenient. As long as she remains convenient.”

Paige didn’t miss the gender emphasis. “What made grandma go insane?”

“As with your grandmother and her grandmother before her.” Raphael clasped his hands in front of him. “We give you a choice. Seek redemption for your defects by working for us, or suffer the consequences.”

Paige choked on her own spit. “Defects?”

Raphael’s lip curled in disgust. “Why do you think you were chosen? You, child, were born wrong.”