Warrior Angel

by Heaton, Felicity

  Why?

  It wasn’t possible that he didn’t know the secret she held in her heart and in her blood. It just wasn’t possible.

  But if he did, he wouldn’t look at her with such fire and hunger.

  He wouldn’t look at her at all.

  The door swung open.

  Taylor got the better of herself and removed her hands from his neck, settling them in her lap as he adjusted his grip on her again. She stared at her knees, waiting for him to carry her inside.

  He didn’t move. He remained on the threshold of the hotel room, staring at her, his breathing heavy enough that she shifted with it in his arms.

  What was he thinking as he looked at her? Did he burn with the same fierce and impossible needs as her? She shouldn’t have teased him again, but she had wanted to see if that moment on the rooftop had been real. She wasn’t sure why.

  Pain speared her chest.

  She flinched and pressed her hand to it.

  It spurred Einar into moving and before she could blink, she was in a bedroom with him. She clutched her chest, burning inside for a different reason now, and breathed deep and steadily. She wasn’t afraid. The angel would help her. Her hands trembled and her limbs shook. She wasn’t afraid.

  She wasn’t.

  Einar settled her on the white double bed and she curled up into a ball on her left side, gripping her right arm. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw as pain ripped through her, blazing like an inferno, stealing her strength and leaving her shaking. She wasn’t afraid.

  Panic twisted her stomach.

  Okay. She was afraid.

  “Shh,” Einar murmured softly and took hold of her hand.

  She stared at it a moment, shock dancing through her at the feel of his strong hand encompassing hers, and then rolled onto her back, covered it with her other one and clung to him.

  He was her only hope now.

  The poison was too deep in her body.

  If he couldn’t save her, she wouldn’t have time to find someone who could.

  Einar moved her and she was too weak to fight him, wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore. She wanted to surrender to him, to give up the fight and trust that he would take care of her. He stretched her out on the bed so she lay with her head on the soft downy pillows and her body in a straight line.

  He ran a glance over her and met her gaze again. “Try to keep still.”

  Taylor’s eyes widened when he held his hands out several inches above her, palms facing her, and, like a magician performing a trick, moved them back and forth along the length of her body.

  And just like magic, a white light appeared, beaming down from his hands, blinding her.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off it though. They tracked it, unable to believe what she was seeing and feeling. Wherever the light touched, she felt warm, weightless, and better.

  He moved his hands down to her feet and then back up her legs, over her arms and stomach, and then finally settled with one over her chest and one over her head.

  “Look at me.”

  She obeyed the command in his deep voice and stared up into his eyes. They were golden now, bright and sharp, holding hers in a way that was impossible to break free from.

  “Keep looking at me.”

  Taylor nodded.

  A bright burst of light dulled her vision.

  Excruciating pain stabbed her heart and head.

  She gritted her teeth and arched off the bed, clutching the covers and bunching them into her fists.

  Bloody hell.

  It didn’t hurt like this when demons took the poison out.

  But then, she had never been this close to dying before.

  She tried to remain conscious and keep her eyes on Einar, just as he had said, but dark waves crashed over her, pulling her under. The more she fought them, the stronger they grew, tugging at her, pressing down on her. She blinked and forced her eyes back open, looking at Einar where he stood over her, his focus on his hands and whatever hellish thing he was doing to her.

  She couldn’t hold on.

  The waves battered her and she slipped, let them sweep her away because they would steal the pain away too.

  She sank into the bed and into the welcoming dark.

  CHAPTER 4

  When the world finally drifted back and the nightmares receded, Taylor slowly opened her eyes. Her mouth was dry, tacky, and her head felt as though someone was bashing it with a sledgehammer. It throbbed and ached along with the rest of her body.

  She shuddered and moaned when the ache went deeper, pulsing through her bones. She needed to move, couldn’t keep still any longer.

  A heavy hand settled against her left shoulder, keeping her on her back as she tried to roll onto her side.

  What had happened to her?

  Her eyes snapped open when it hit her.

  Her blurred vision came into focus and she looked at her right arm. Her jacket was gone, and so was the wound. Not even a scar remained. She swallowed and the pain began to recede, drifting away.

  A second strong hand came into view.

  His fingers brushed the area where the wound had been and she tracked the length of his arm up to his face. He looked worried again. He wouldn’t look that way if he knew about her, if he knew what she was.

  He couldn’t know, and she didn’t want to tell him.

  Einar smiled at her, not bright or cheerful, but full of warmth.

  Taylor reminded herself that he was an angel. That was the only reason he smiled at her that way. It was his duty to be concerned about damsels in distress. It had nothing to do with her being the one in danger.

  But then, he had looked at her with such forceful hunger and passion too.

  Had that been real?

  Taylor stared up into his eyes for a few seconds. When they met hers, she glanced away, her gaze lighting on his shoulder and then taking in his gold-edged brown armour. It didn’t hide much of his body. All he wore was a breastplate detailed with dull gold that ended just below his pectorals, vambraces to protect his forearms, greaves to protect his shins, along with his boots, and slats encircling his hips over a dark loincloth.

  He looked like a gladiator, with wings.

  They were large and furled against his back, as tawny as the rest of him, the long feathers brown but flecked with paler hues of tan and grey. Like an eagle. He had eyes to match that image.

  And he was handsome.

  There was no denying that.

  He was more than handsome. Gorgeous perhaps. Otherworldly. And with muscles to die for. Angels shouldn’t have such godly bodies. They only led women into temptation, and she was sure that sort of thing was a sin.

  “How long was I out?” she croaked.

  He sat on the bed beside her, releasing her shoulder. “Fourteen hours.”

  Taylor rubbed her throat. Fourteen hours and she still felt as though she needed to sleep it off.

  Einar shifted away from her, leaning to his right, and sat back again, offering her a tall glass of water. She took it and he moved towards her. Damn, he smelled good. Earth and fire, with a hint of spice.

  “Here, let me help you.” His deep voice curled around her, sending that unwanted heat shimmering over her skin again.

  Taylor didn’t fight him as he took hold of her arm with one hand and placed the other against her shoulder blade, helping her sit up. It took a lot out of her just to shuffle into a comfortable position. When she moved backwards to rest against the pillows, his hand slid down to the small of her back, touching the bare skin above the waist of her jeans.

  A shiver raced through her, bringing warmth in its wake.

  She stared at him, her thirst forgotten, replaced with something altogether more alarming.

  Hunger.

  Desire.

  Two things she definitely shouldn’t be feeling towards an angel.

  “Thanks.” Taylor shooed him away and sipped the water.

  Einar sat beside her again.

&
nbsp; The silence was too comfortable.

  Taylor looked at her socks, needing something to distract her from the temptation to look at him again. He had taken her boots off. She ran her gaze up her jeans and over her waist. She frowned, glanced around the room, and found what she was looking for on the small wooden cabinet beside the bed.

  In a neat row, as though on display, every knife she’d had on her person gleamed under the table lamp.

  “I did not want you to hurt yourself. I hope you do not mind that I removed them?” His tone held a note of concern, as if he honestly feared she was going to go off the rails at him again over him removing her weapons.

  She supposed she had given him a little hell when he had been trying to help her.

  Taylor frowned at the knives, searching for her voice. They were in descending order by size. Either he had been bored while she had been sleeping, or he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  “Not at all,” she murmured, distant as she stared at the knives.

  Some of them had been in her jacket, which now lay on a chair across the pale room along with her sword. Others had been sheathed in her boots. And then there were those she’d had strapped against her hips and ribs. The thought of Einar’s hands so close to her breasts brought a blush onto her cheeks.

  “You do not look well.” He leaned closer, filling her senses with his intoxicating masculine scent.

  Her blush deepened and her gaze shot to Einar as she touched her blazing cheeks. “I’m fine. Tired, and groggy, and in need of some painkillers, but other than that, I’m good, Romeo.”

  “I wish you would stop calling me that.” His eyes narrowed with his frown and his lips compressed. “I have a name, and I have told it to you.”

  “Oh.” Taylor toyed with the glass of water, suddenly feeling unsure of herself. She didn’t want to get on first name terms with him. Danger lay that way. It was better that they remained barely involved in each other’s lives, and not calling him by his name was a good method for achieving that, one she had employed many times in the past. “Sure.”

  “Taylor?” he husked and she cringed.

  He had to go and say it, didn’t he?

  “Yes?” Her gaze remained glued on the glass. She sipped the water, ran her finger around the base, did everything she could to avoid looking at him.

  “Do you know much about the breed of demon you encountered last night?”

  That seemed like a safe enough question to answer.

  “Yes.” She risked it and looked at him.

  She didn’t mean to make eye contact, but hers leaped to his and she found herself staring into them. They mesmerised her as the colours in them shifted and swirled. Not unsettling or scary at all. When his eyes did that, she wanted to look into them forever.

  His dark pupils widened, filling his eyes with unmistakable desire, and images of them together on the bed flickered through her mind like old silent movies.

  Taylor tried to shun them but they wouldn’t go, not while he was looking at her with such hunger and need.

  The message in his eyes was clear, written in ten-foot high neon letters that blazed so brightly they blinded her. Men had given her that ‘come get me’ look plenty of times before, and she had fallen for it a few of those, wanting the passion their eyes had promised. Some of them had even come good on it.

  But there was one difference this time.

  When she had been promised the ride of her life in the past, it had been by men.

  Not angels.

  That shocked some sense into her.

  She cleared her throat. It wasn’t going to happen and her body had better get the message soon. It didn’t matter just how good Einar looked, and how easily she could fall into his arms and this bed with him. It was wrong and it would end badly for her.

  This was going to be strictly business.

  He knew something about the godforsaken scum she had encountered last night. She would bleed him for information on the demons and why they were in her city, deal with them and then dump him. It was the only reason she was going to propose something that would otherwise be the stupidest idea she had ever had.

  “I’ll tell you about them on one condition.” She raised a single finger, held his gaze, and gave him her best seductive smile. “We work together.”

  He shook his head.

  “There is no reason for you to become involved.” His deep voice held a note of warning and his face darkened. “I cannot risk you.”

  Taylor put the glass of water down on the wooden cabinet beside her and glared at him. “I don’t need protecting. I can handle myself. I know this city, and the demons that run it, and if you want that information, you’re going to have to work with me to get rid of that pain in the arse breed.”

  Einar’s frown deepened and his tone hardened. “Like you handled yourself last night?”

  She had been waiting for that one. “You got in the way. I was doing fine until you showed up.”

  “I was watching you the whole time,” he bit out and she wondered whether he knew there was darkness in his eyes now, shadows that an angel shouldn’t possess. At least not one of the good ones. His eyes narrowed on her. “You fought well, but he bested you, and you would have been dead had I not intervened.”

  Taylor sat forward, fury blazing through her and pushing her fatigue to the back of her mind as she realised that he was not only going to deny her help, he was going to belittle her in the process, questioning her strength and skill.

  Who the hell did he think he was?

  She protected this city with her life and had done for years before he had shown up to play white knight. She would have been fine if he hadn’t got in the way. It was his fault the damned demon had managed to get a claw on her.

  “Listen.” She took hold of his breastplate at the edges near his shoulders and yanked him towards her. His eyes widened as he jerked forwards and then narrowed again. “Either we work together, or I show you up by killing all of that breed before you. I’m pretty sure that’ll look bad on your record. A woman beating you to the kill.”

  Einar calmly removed her hands from his armour and her anger faltered when he didn’t let go of them. He held them, gently cradling her fingers in his, and warmth eased up her arms. She snatched her hands back, rattled by how easily he could calm the darkness inside of her.

  “I am already in the lead,” he said with a twitch of his lips that looked as if it might have been a grin before he had contained it. “I am only after another two. Without your information, it may take time for me to find them. People are in danger while those creatures roam the streets. They have killed many over the past four years. Please. Give me the information I need, Taylor.”

  Why did he have to keep saying her name? Whenever he said it, rolling it off his tongue in a sensual way, she wanted to melt and give him whatever he was asking for.

  She sucked down a deep breath, bolstered her resolve and shook her head. “This is my city. I protect it. You want to get those demons, then you’re gonna have to partner with me.”

  His dark gaze drifted down over her body, a wicked smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  She could read that look too.

  It was more ‘coming to get you’ than ‘come get me’ this time but unnerved her just as much.

  She wouldn’t relent.

  If he didn’t know about her by now, he would certainly know if he got intimate with her. She didn’t want that to happen. She didn’t want him to hurt her. Never get involved. Her mother had taught her that and she had obeyed like a good girl, afraid of the consequences if she didn’t. She couldn’t get involved.

  Maybe she should just tell him everything and then leave before things got complicated. She didn’t think she could bear someone turning on her, not in the way she was picturing him doing in her head. It would tear her apart inside.

  Just as she was resolved to give him the information and leave, he touched her hand and her eyes found his ag
ain.

  He smiled.

  “Deal.”

  Taylor’s stomach dropped two inches.

  What had she done?

  CHAPTER 5

  Einar wasn’t sure of the real reason why Taylor had insisted on partnering with him to find the demons, but he was certain that it wasn’t just about the fact it was her city and she knew it well. There was something else at play and he wanted to know what it was.

  It couldn’t be the thing that he had already figured out about her.

  In fact, her part-demon blood was the reason he was so surprised that she wanted to work with him.

  He had thought that it would be reason enough for her to give him the information he wanted and then leave and never see him again.

  Now he had another problem to deal with.

  His feelings.

  It was wrong of him to agree to working with her, especially given the seriousness of the situation. Taylor was a distraction. It wasn’t that he doubted her ability to take care of herself. It was the fact that she was beautiful, alluring, and tempting him even when she wasn’t trying to. It was wrong of him to entertain the myriad of devious things that had been flooding his mind all day with images of them together. He hadn’t wanted a mortal woman in centuries, and had certainly never lusted after a woman like Taylor.

  She drew him to her, a siren both irresistible and deadly, luring him into surrendering to temptation.

  He had watched her sleeping, had remained in the suite at the hotel when he should have been out looking for the demons. She hadn’t needed him to stay with her. His power had removed all trace of the demon toxin from her blood and she had only needed to recover her strength through sleep.

  So why hadn’t he been able to leave her side?

  He had removed her boots, and then her weapons, and when she hadn’t awoken, he had arranged the knives into order. He had inspected her sword. The short silver blade was blessed, which led him to suspect that she was a hunter of sorts. She had said that she protected London and seemed intent on ridding it of a dangerous breed of demon.