Forbidden: Broken

Chapter One

The music was a living thing, crawling over her skin and invading her senses. The bouncer stepped aside as she approached. Keeping her eyes on the open door of Excess, Irin was oblivious to the barely dressed women and gelled, manicured men waiting impatiently in line. Protests over her skipping never made it through the driving bass that filled her ears.

This week had been awful, on every level. One she wanted so bad to forget. So desperate was her need to lose herself in dance, that using compulsion on the one blocking the entrance never bothered her conscious. In the past, the idea of using that ability on a human would have sickened her.

Now it was move him or kill him.

That errant thought stopped her determined strides. Turning back, she looked at him.

His shaved head gleamed in the hot August night. Thick sinewy arms crossed the barrel of his chest. Massive legs spread apart. He looked daunting. Exactly like hundreds of other bouncers at hundreds of other clubs. But there was one thing that set him apart. Tiny tattoos of a cross graced the palm of each hand in the same place that nails had been driven into those of someone greater than he. This man was devout; a good man. Surrounded by the flesh like he was, he was never tempted to sample it. He had two small children that he doted on and a wife that he loved more than anything.

The ease of which she had contemplated his death brought a flutter to her breath. With the powers she still held, even after being cast out of Heaven, it would have been simple.

She closed her eyes against the vision of strutting up to him, putting one hand around his neck, pulling him down to whisper in his ear, then snapping his neck.

So close.

She turned on shaky legs as the though whispered through her mind. Pushing past it, she made her way to the bar.

Sliding a credit card across the granite to the bartender, she ordered a Crown Black and threw it back.

"Another."

He gave her an appraising look but did as she wanted.

Holding up a finger for one more, she swallowed the amber liquid.

With lifted brows, he poured again and slid it across the bar. "Anything you want to talk about?"

She cocked her head to the side and leaned forward. He did the same.

"If I wanted a fucking therapist, I would be boots up in an office somewhere. What I need is a bartender. If you want that job, pour me another drink."

She turned away, listening as he cursed her in his head.

She wouldn't be the first uppity bitch he picked up from a puddle of her own vomit.

She almost smiled. That would have been the first time in months.

Eyes on the bodies on the floor, she picked up the shot glass.

She envied the humans. Being an angel, she knew how insane that was. For the rest of eternity, she would be beautiful, young, and strong.

And with it, forever alone and celibate.

Forever punished.

Irin had been sentenced with a fate worse than death. Her eyes rolled at the cheesy line. Cheesy but true. And all for daring to have a mind of her own.

She was too kind, too emotional, couldn't follow orders. That was what they said. All for refusing to kill a child that some jacked up angel had deemed evil.