Immortal

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author who has kept readers on the edge of their seats with her phenomenal Fallen Angels novels, comes one of the most heart-stirring and eagerly anticipated events in that acclaimed series.

The Creator invented the game, and the stakes are nothing less than the fate of the quick and the dead: seven souls, seven crossroads. Reluctant savior Jim Heron has compromised himself, his body and his soul, and yet he’s on the verge of losing everything...

...Including Sissy, the innocent he freed from Hell. Jim’s determined to protect her—but this makes her a weakness the demon Devina can exploit. With Jim torn between the game and the woman he’s sworn to defend, evil’s more than ready to play dirty.

Humanity’s savior is prepared to do anything to win—even embark on a suicide mission into the shadows of Purgatory. True love is Jim’s only hope for survival—and victory. But can a man with no heart and no soul be saved by something he doesn’t believe in? | Praise for the novels of the Fallen Angels:

“Fans of the Black Dagger Brotherhood clear a shelf: Your next series addiction has just begun.”—Publishers Weekly

“Pulse-pounding twists, a titillating romance, and a darker side of angels that you’ve never seen before.…a ride that you won’t forget.”—Fresh Fiction

“I absolutely loved this book!”—Darhk Portal

“It makes me happy to see that Ward still has it in her to shock the you-know-what out of me.”—Fiction Vixen

“It grabbed me from the very beginning.”—Smexy Books

“Wow. Just, wow...left me almost speechless.”—All About Romance

“You don’t want to miss out on this one.”—Smokin’ Hot Books

“Proves that J. R. Ward’s talents don’t stop at vampires.”—LoveVampires

  | J. R. Ward is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Black Dagger Brotherhood novels, and the Fallen Angel series. Writing as Jessica Bird, she is the author of Leaping Hearts, Heart of Gold, The Irresistible Bachelor, and An Unforgettable Lady. She lives in the South with her family. |

By J. R. Ward

Acknowledgments

Chapter
One

Sometimes a girl just needed a new pair of kicks.

As the demon Devina strode through the Freidmont Hotel’s lobby, she was all about the good feels, strutting it large, hinging those hips. In her mind, her thoughts were locked on last-night action. On her body, she wore skintight leather from her double-Ds to her size nines and all the acreage in between. And talk about pheromones—if she put out any more of them, her fuck-me aura would burn holes through the paneled walls.

Eyes followed her. Men’s and women’s. But why wouldn’t they? Caldwell, New York, wasn’t that far from NYC, and famous people came up all the time from the Big Apple. Besides, even though they didn’t recognize her from movies or TV, she was still a world-class beauty.

At least in this current suit of flesh.

Back to the shoes.

She was heading to the revolving doors, crossing that smooth stretch of shiny, creamy marble, when she saw the stilettos—and stopped dead. Under a Plexiglas case, as if they were jewels, the pair of golden Louboutins was spotlit from above, and oh, the loveliness: The entire skin of each of them was covered in a million micro Swarovski crystals, until their surface looked liquid. And the style? Razor-thin heels that were high enough to put you en pointe. Tiny toe box to show off the cleav. Hidden platforms to provide support on the ball of the foot.

And the capper was, of course, the red sole, the underside of the heels flashing the color of a candied apple.

It was love at first sight.

“Madam, would you like to try these on?”

She didn’t even look at the man who’d materialized beside her. OCD was a disease of capture, and its hooks were once again nailing her in the heart. Even though she had nearly a thousand pairs in her wardrobe, the idea that she couldn’t have this particular twosome, that someone or something might get in the way of her possessing them and keeping them, made her chest tight, her palms sweaty, and her blood flutter through her veins.

“Madam?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Size nine.”

“Come with me.”

She followed like a lamb, looking over her shoulder to double-check that the shoes were still where she’d seen them. Worse came to worst, she could always just steal them—

In the back of her mind, a whoaaaaaaaaaa-Nelly rang out. For the past year, she’d been going to therapy to try to stop these kinds of tailspins.

Calm the fuck down, Devina. It’s just a shoe. It’s only . . .

It is not going to solve your problems with Jim.

Okay, now she felt like throwing up.

FFS, what was she supposed to say to herself? She tried to remember the combination of words that was supposed to put this out-of-control need into a healthier perspective, but there was a traffic jam in her system of neuro-highways. All she could think of was, Get it, keep it, count it.

Get it, keep it, count it. . . .

Get it, keep it, count it. . . .

Damn it, this was a big step back. Thanks to that fully actualized, post-menopausal woman with the PhD on her wall and the couch-cushion body, Devina had been making headway with the compulsions. But this . . . this was old-school, and not in a good way.

And yeah, she knew why this was happening.

It was easier to think about the shoes.

The boutique was in the rear of the lobby, and as she walked through the glass-and-marble entrance, the scented air did nothing to ease the burn. The only thing that was going to help was—

“Was that a nine?” the salesman asked.

Devina shot a glare over. Mr. Can’t Remmy a Damn Shoe Size had a good suit on and a silk tie, and his salt-and-pepper hair was sculpted back from his Botox’d forehead. Turned out the sophisticated fragrance in the place was his cologne, and as he fiddled with his handkerchief, his nails were buffed to a high shine.

He was too put-together to kill. And besides, how would she get her shoes then?

“Nine,” she said sharply. “I’m a nine.”

“Very good, madam. Would you care for a mimosa?”

No, I want my fucking shoes. “Thank you, no.”

“Very good.”

Left to her own devices, she paced around the fake Aubusson and checked out the other high-ends you could buy. Judith Leiber minaudières. More shoes, but nothing she was panting to have. Akris jackets. St. John knits. Armani dresses.

Catching sight of herself in one of the many mirrors, she checked out her own ass . . . and thought back to how she’d spent the night.

Her one true love had banged the shit out of her. They’d had about eight hours of epic sex up in her suite, just like she’d wanted. And the fact that the entire time he’d hated himself for it? Icing on the cake.

Jim Heron was a hell of a lover.

Tragically, that wasn’t the only thing he was—and therein lay the problem. He was a cheater. He was a liar. And he didn’t understand the concept of monogamy: Even after their incredible night? He’d gone back home to someone else.

And God, the idea that that virgin Sissy was the competition? Now that shit made her want to buy everything in this store. Even the crap that didn’t fit her.

As she started to estimate the cost, item by item, she stopped herself and tried to placate her OCD with the reality that she was leading three rounds to two in the war over humanity—so if she won the battle for this current soul? By the rules the Creator had set up, she got everything: Not only did she keep her precious collections and her children down in Hell, but she gained dominion over the earth as well as Heaven above.

For someone hardwired like her, it was a wet dream unparalleled, a winning Powerball lottery ticket with a jackpot in the hundreds of billions.

You wanna talk about shoe collections? She could enslave Manolo, Stuie, Christian—and get them to make nothing but footwear for her for time immemorial.

But even better, she’d get Jim—

“Madam, I am so sorry.”

Devina turned around. Mr. Manicure had come out from the back . . . but didn’t have a box in his hand. “Excuse me?”

“We have only the size eight. I can order—”

The man cleared his throat. Twice. Then he opened his mouth to try to breathe. Brought his carefully tended hands up to his carefully knotted tie. Went walleyed.

“You were saying?” Devina drawled.

A little clicking sound came out of him as he tried to remain composed while failing to bring air into his lungs.

But damn it, if she killed him, how would she find the shoes in the back?

Devina released the invisible pressure. “Bring me the eights.”

The man wheezed and threw a hand out to catch himself on the Leiber display, knocking a couple of the hard sparklies off their posts.

“Now,” she barked, flashing her eyes at him.

Cue the shuffling across that rug. And the instant he was behind the silk curtain, the round of coughing and wheezing was like an asthmatic in a greenhouse. But he did emerge with a beige-colored box about two minutes and thirty-nine seconds later. Not that she was counting.

She didn’t hear a word he said as he approached, her eyes locked on what was in his hands. There was a temptation to snatch the shit out of his grip, but she wanted to see the shoes on her feet, even if they didn’t go with her outfit.

Although, dayum, Swarovski and black leather was classic.

Devina hit the row of three damask-covered chairs and kicked off her black Guccis. “Give them to me now.”

The box came to her on command and her hands shook as she popped the top and sighed. The pair of red bags with Louboutin’s black signature on them were a sight to behold and her hands shook as she took one out and pulled open the drawstring. Then . . . oh, what a beauty.

The gem-like twinkling was better than those little purses. Better than what she’d seen out in the lobby through the display case. And the color was that of Caucasian flesh.

Jim’s flesh.

She closed her eyes reverently and sent up a prayer for the salesman to keep quiet—if he said one thing about her feet being too big, she was going to take his head off, and not verbally.

With care, she un-bagged the other one and lined up both shoes side by side on the floor. Then she released the structure of her feet so that as she slid her tootsies into the works of art, her bones and skin were like water filling a vase, nothing but accommodation.

The salesman seemed a little surprised as she stood up and walked around all comfy-comfy, but he wasn’t going to say boo, and how lucky for him. Plus, come on, the Loubous were what, like nearly five grand? And he had to be on commission.

Devina smiled as she stared down at her feet, a flush of giddy relief wiping away all the angst about Jim and the war and that fucking Sissy. All at once she was glowing from the inside out, as if she’d had a rip-roaring orgasm, a hot-fudge sundae, and a deep tissue massage all at once.

These were the most perfect shoes in the entire world, and they were hers and nobody else’s, and she was taking them to her wardrobe right now—

That bell in the back of her head rang again, the one that told her when she was backsliding. But screw that.

The stillies were epic, and she couldn’t wait for Jim to see her in ’em. Preferably while the rest of her was nakey.

Yup, these she would save for him.

Popping them off her feet, she put them back into the box just as they’d been presented to her and double-checked to make sure the little red bag with the extra heel tips was in there. Then she glanced over at the salesman—who was taking a discreet puff from an inhaler.

“Put them on my tab,” she said triumphantly. “I’m in the penthouse.”

When your man went home to another, retail therapy was the only way to go.

Chapter
Two

Standing over a white-and-blue bowl, Sissy Barten cracked an egg so hard, the shell didn’t just shatter but vaporized. “Oh, come on.”

Turning to the sink, she cranked on the water and cleaned off her hand. Which was shaking. Actually, her whole body was shaking, like her spine was a fault line and everything else was in danger of going the way of that egg.

As she cranked off the faucet, the old mansion got way too quiet, and with a jerk, she looked over her shoulder. Hairs prickled across the back of her neck, warning her of . . . what? There were no footfalls, no screams, nobody with a knife or a gun stalking her.

Great. Guess immortals could lose their minds. And wasn’t that a happy future to look forward to.

You couldn’t kill yourself if you were already dead.

“Damn it,” she whispered.

Drying her hands, she grabbed the bowl and washed the thing out. Then she went back to the carton and . . .

Stalled completely. She didn’t want to make scrambled eggs for herself. She didn’t want to be stuck in this house. She didn’t want to be dead and separated from her family. . . .

And while she was at it? She really, totally, absolutely did not want to have that image of Jim Heron half-naked in her head. The sight of him coming out of that bathroom in the wee hours of the night, a towel around his waist, a wasted expression on his face, was like a billboard in front of her brain. She saw every nuance of his body, those huge shoulders, the tight abs, the tops of his hip bones, and that little line of hair beneath his belly button.

Mostly, though, she saw the scratches in his smooth skin. There had been three sets of them, and there was only one thing that could have made—

Abruptly, her shaking got worse, and she tried to do something about it by cracking each one of her knuckles.

Okay, this was ridiculous. You’d think, given her current résumé of being a sacrificial dead-ass virgin resurrected from Hell into a war between a pair of fallen angels and a real, live, honest-to-God demon, that the main thing on her mind would not be some guy. Then again, reality had gone wonky on her weeks ago, so could she really be surprised—

She wheeled around.

No one was there. Again. No one was moving in the house or outside on the scruffy grounds. Adrian, the other fallen angel, had gone up to sleep in the attic where he stayed. And Jim? Jim was on the second floor, doing REM recovery from his night of pneumatic sex.

“Damn it . . .”

Bracing her hands on either side of the bowl, she leaned into her arms. In spite of her rising paranoia, fear wasn’t responsible for her case of the paint mixers.

The urge to kill was.

And that was only a liiiiittle hyperbole. Because her half-naked, towel-wrapped savior had gotten those scratches on his body from a woman’s fingernails. And his mouth had been swollen not from getting coldcocked in a fight, but because he’d been kissing someone. A lot. And his walk-of-shame expression?

Well, that was on account of his clearly having banged someone for hours instead of doing his job. Which just made her furious. Angels responsible for making sure good prevailed over evil? In a war like this? Generally speaking, keeping their eye on the ball was a better idea than being with some whore for hours.

Or, God, maybe she was a nice woman. Who, like, cooked for him as well as gave him great blow jobs.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.

Did he have a girlfriend? Well, obviously . . . although maybe that was naive of her. Did men have girlfriends? College students did—but Jim was faaaaaar from one of those—

She glanced over her shoulder for a third time. But nope, Jim was not coming through the doorway. Nobody was.

Hell, for all she knew, he’d already left to have coffee with his—

“Stop it. Just . . . stop it.”

As her rage level went up another decibel, it felt like an eternity since she’d been a college student taking her mom’s car out to the local Hannaford for some ice cream . . . aeons since she’d been approached there by . . .

She couldn’t remember that part. Couldn’t re-create exactly what series of events had brought her to her mortal end, but she recalled everything that came after that: the viscous walls of Hell, the tortured damned twisting around her, her own pain turning her ancient.

Jim Heron had ended up down there, too—for a time. And Sissy had seen what the demon did to him. Had watched those shadowy minions do . . . horrible things to his body.

“Shit.”

All things considered, she should cut him some slack, right? He was a victim in all this, too, wasn’t he? So if, in the midst of this war, the man wanted to get a little grind, lose himself in someone, have a break from the horror and the pressure . . . what business was it of hers?

The guy had gotten her out of Hell, and for that solid, she owed him. But that didn’t give her the right to get all hot and bothered about him having gotten all hot and bothered with someone else.

Although granted, there was a lot at stake—if he lost, her own parents, her sister, her friends . . . herself and Jim and Adrian, all would go where she had just been. Now that was too horrific to think about. She had been down there for only a few weeks and it had felt like centuries; she had aged centuries. If it was going to be an eternity? She couldn’t even fathom the experience.

Refocusing, she decided to have another go at the cracking routine. And what do you know, egg number two split in the wrong place, half of the shell ended up in the bowl, and she had to go back to the sink and wash her hands again.

Turning off the water, she stared out the window. The backyard was downright ugly, the landscaping version of a man who hadn’t shaved for a week and didn’t have a good beard pattern working for him: Even though spring was gaining a firm toehold in Caldwell, New York, with buds forming on the tips of tree branches and the snow gone even from where it had been piled up high by the plows, a coat of green leaves wasn’t going to help back there.

In her previous life, she’d be getting excited for summer—even though all that entailed was her sharing an apartment in Lake George Village and serving ice cream at Martha’s for two months. But hello, summer was awesome. You got to wear shorts and hang out with your friends from high school, and maybe, just maybe . . . meet someone.

Instead, here, she was. An immortal with no life—

“You making scrambled—”

Sissy spun around so fast, her hip slammed into the counter—and her only thought was, Where was the nearest knife?

Except she wasn’t going to need a weapon.

Adrian, Jim’s wingman, was standing in the doorway from the hall, and the instant she saw him, she calmed down. The guy, fallen angel, whatever, was well over six feet tall, and in spite of that bad leg of his, he was built big and hard. He was also handsome in the way of a military man, with that strong jaw and the stare that followed everything, although the piercings gave him an anti-authority edge.

As did the fact that he was blind in one eye, the pupil having gone milky white from some kind of injury.

He frowned. “You all right?”

Nope. She was rip-shit pissed and absolutely terrified—both for no good reason. “Yup—I was just going to make breakfast.”

Like he hadn’t already figured that out?

Adrian limped over to the square table in the center of the kitchen, and when he sat down, his body was like a sack of loose bones, landing in the chair with the grace of Twiddlywinks falling. But that didn’t mean he was a lightweight.

“What’s going on,” he demanded.

Yup. For what she’d learned about him, this was pretty typical: straight shooter, no bullshit.

“You want four eggs?” She turned away from him. “Or three.”

“Talk to me.” There was another groan and she imagined he’d leaned his heavy arms on the table. Or tried to cross his legs. “You might as well. We’re the only ones up.”

“I guess Jim had a hard night.”

“He told you about the loss?”

“Yes.” Way to go, Jim. Fantastic. Hope those orgasms were worth it. “So how many eggs you want.”

“Seven.”

She glanced at what was left in the carton. “I can offer you four. I broke two and I want two myself.”

“Deal.”

And Jim could fend for himself. Or go ask his girlfriend to make some breakfast for him—

“Girlfriend?” Adrian asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

She threw up her hands and pivoted back to face him. “Look, no wonder Jim is losing. He’s too busy with some woman to pay attention to what he’s doing.”

Adrian just stared at her. “You mind if I ask where this is coming from?”

“Let’s just say I caught him coming home at four in the morning.”

Adrian cursed under his breath—and didn’t go any further than that.

Sissy shook her head. “So you know about his girlfriend, or fuck buddy, or whatever she is. You know what he was doing last night.”

“Look, it’s complicated.”

“That is a Facebook status. Not an excuse for screwing around on your job. Especially given the biblical stakes he’s playing for.”

On that note, she got cracking, so to speak. And made it through the rest of the carton fine. Poured a splash of milk in. Whisked her little heart out as she got the pan warmed up and the butter melted.

“My mom always told me to wait,” she muttered.

“For what?”

Okay, either her mouth needed to stop working or he needed to lose some hearing. Like she was going to talk about sex with the guy?

Then again, it’d just be a short convo, at least on her side.

Sissy shot his big, hard body a glance—and decided the topic would probably not be a quickie on his part. “Till the butter was right. Before you put the eggs in, you know.”

Ironically, the whole virginity thing was the reason the demon had taken her, the very thing that had set the wheels in motion and landed her here: just a couple of miles away from her family but separated by a divide so great she might as well have been on another planet.

“Something’s burning.”

“Shoot!” Sissy lunged for the smoking pan and picked the thing up without a pot holder, burning her palm— “Goddamn it!”

From out of nowhere, that murderous rage made her want to destroy something: The stove. The kitchen. The whole house. Blinded by anger, she wanted to splash gasoline around the base of the wooden mansion and light everything on fire. She wanted to stand so close to the blaze her pores got tight and her eyelashes curled.

And maybe, just maybe, she wanted Jim to have to claw his way out to safety.

Big hands came to rest on her shoulders. “Sissy.”

She was so not up for some kind of parental pep talk. “I don’t need—”

“Jim is not your problem. Do you hear me?”

With a yank and a shove, she stepped away. “It doesn’t bother you that he’s distracted?”

Adrian stared down at her, that eye on the right positively opaque. “Oh, it does. Trust me.”

“So why don’t you do something about it! Talk to him or something—you’re close, right? Tell him to stop . . . doing what he’s doing. Maybe if he refocused, he’d start winning.” When there was no reaction, she cursed. “Don’t you care about what happens? Your best friend is up in that attic, dead because of—”

Adrian shoved his face into hers. “Stop right there.”

The tone in his voice shut her up.

“You and I?” he said. “We get along. We’re cool. But that doesn’t mean you get to talk about shit you don’t know about. You have problems with Jim? I get that more than you realize. You don’t appreciate him getting wound in the head about some chick? Join the fucking club. You’re worried about what happens next? Head to the end of a very, very long line. But watch your mouth about Eddie, ’cause that was before your time and it’s none of your damn business.”

For some reason, the fact that he was partially agreeing with her just pissed her off even more. “I gotta get out of here. I just . . . I gotta get some air. Make your own eggs—you can eat my share.”

Back in her real life, Sissy had never been much of a stomp-and-slammer. She’d been a good girl, the kind who had besties instead of boyfriends, was always the designated driver, and never, ever made a fuss about anything.

But death had cured her of all that.

She marched over to the door, ripped that thing open like she wanted to tear it off its hinges, and pounded her way outside. As she kick-shut those wood panels behind her, it occurred to her that she didn’t have anywhere to go. But that problem was solved as a glint of metal caught her eye.

The Harleys were parked inside the detached ancient garage, and she went for the one she’d used before. The keys were in the ignition—which would have been stupid except for the fact that this was an otherwise good neighborhood, and say what you wanted about Jim and Adrian, they were the kind of men who could get a bike back if it was stolen.

And not by calling the police.

Throwing a leg over the seat, she pumped the engine, tilted the weight so she could free the kickstand . . . and a second later she hit the gas and roared off, screaming down the drive past the old mansion’s flank, screeching out into the street and powering off.

With no helmet on her head, the wind roared past her ears and mixed with the engine’s din. Her sweatshirt offered little buffer between her skin and the cool morning, and would offer even less protection if she wiped out and hit the pavement.

But she was already dead.

So it wasn’t like she had to worry about pneumonia or dermabrasion.

Besides, who the hell cared?

Jim Heron came awake like he was shot out of a cannon, palming his forty, jacking upright, ready to pull the trig.

No targets. Just faded flowered wallpaper, the bed he was lying in, and two piles of laundry on the floor in the corner, one clean, one dirty.

For a split second, time spaghetti’d on him, no longer a function that was linear, but a fucked-up mess where the past twisted around the present. Was he looking for a rogue operative? A soldier who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? An assassin who’d come for him?

Or was this a morning from the second chapter in his life? Where a demon’s minions were after him? Maybe Devina, herself?

Or was that bitch assuming another mask where she looked like—

The roar of a Harley engine igniting outside his window snapped his head around. Up on his feet, he went over to the window and parted the thin curtains.

Down below, Sissy Barten was on Eddie’s bike, cranking gas into the engine, making that Harley talk. With quick efficiency, she freed up the kickstand and took off, blond hair streaming behind her in the spring sunlight.

His immediate instinct was to go after her, either on one of the other Harleys or by ghosting out and traveling on the wind. And he gave in to the impulse, yanking some jeans on, dragging a Hanes T-shirt over his head. He was shoving his socked feet into his combat boots when he stopped.

And pictured his enemy.

Devina was six feet of brunette sexpot—at least when she slipcovered herself in all that appealing flesh. Underneath the lie? She was a pinup only by Walking Dead standards. But in either garb, she had the focus of a laser sight, the smile of a cobra, and the sexual appetite of a frat boy on Molly.

In the last round of this war, he’d spent so much time worrying about Sissy that he’d made the wrong call about which soul was on deck. And lost a crucial win as a result.

He couldn’t afford to do that again.

The Creator had set up the conflict with very clear parameters: seven souls, seven shots for Jim to influence someone at a crossroads. If the person in play picked the righteous path? Angels won. If not, score one for Devina. Winner got all the souls of the quick and dead, and dominion over Heaven and Hell. The loser was game-over’d.

Pretty clear, right? Bullshit. In reality, the war wasn’t playing out along any neat and tidy rules, and the biggest deviation that screwed him where it hurt was that Devina wasn’t supposed to be down on the field. Technically, only he was allowed to interact with the souls—but when your enemy was a liar down to her black and evil core? All bets were off. Throughout the entire game, the demon had totally refused to color within the lines—easy to do when you had no sense of morality, and “fair play” was not in your vocabulary.

Shit . . . Sissy.

Jim scrubbed his face, and felt like a rope being pulled in two different directions.

As a former black ops soldier for the U.S. government, he was hardly the nurturing type. And yet, from the second he’d found that girl hanging upside down in the demon’s tub, her life ended so she could function as ADT for Devina’s precious mirror? He’d been strung up on her.

The truth was, she was the reason that he was on the verge of losing this whole goddamn war. He’d traded one of his wins to the demon to get her out of Hell. And then he’d been so distracted trying to make sure Sissy didn’t lose her mind in the transition, he’d tanked the last round.

If not for Sissy Barten, he’d be up by two and on the verge of shutting things down in a good way.

Instead, all it was going to take was one more fuck-up and Devina was the HBIC—and the aftermath was going to make any concept of doomsday look like an infomercial for luxury time-shares.

He thought of his dead mother, up in the Manse of Souls, spending the eternity she deserved with the rest of the righteous. He cocked this up? Poof! Sorry, Mom, pack your bags, you’re retiring down south. Waaaaay down south.

All because I got my head scrambled by long blond hair and a pair of blue