The words were soft, sleep-drugged, and a shudder crawled along his spine at her whispered endearment.
My beloved archangel. Only Eleni had ever called him that. Only she had ever dared.
Only Eleni had ever possessed the right.
Fascination and dread-filled hope thundered through him as he stared at Aurora’s sleeping face.
It wasn’t possible. He knew that. Eleni was dead, and dead forever. She could never return.
Aurora’s words meant nothing.
They meant everything.
He raked his hand through his hair and gripped the back of his neck. It didn’t shift the crazy thoughts pounding through his head.
Why did she possess a necklace so similar to the one he had once given to Eleni?
Stop. There was no connection between Eleni and Aurora. He couldn’t risk traveling that path, clinging to a dream, when he knew, in his heart, it could never be.
But what if it was more than a dream?
There was only one other he could talk to about this. Only one other who could truly understand.
Zad.
It didn’t take long to track him down. He was knee deep in the latest devastating earthquake that had recently hit the Pacific.
Gabe stood on a bank of steaming rubble and watched the other archangel, second only to Mephisto in age, leave the medical team he’d been organizing and make his way across the broken landscape toward him.
“Is it worth it?” Gabe narrowed his eyes against the gritty atmosphere and surveyed the ruined city. Zad haunted natural disasters on Earth as if they were a drug.
“Got to be worth a try.”
They’d had similar conversations a million times in the past. As far as Gabe was concerned, humans could just get the hell on with it. Somehow or another their species always survived, no matter what the Earth or cosmos threw at them.
They survived. Whether they deserved to or not.
Strange. He and Zad had both lost those who meant everything to them. Yet while Gabe had turned his back on humanity, Zad had embraced them.
Gabe would never again open his arms to the human race.
Aurora’s face filled his vision, obliterating the ravaged land. She was a human, and he’d done far more than merely open his arms to her. He’d broken ancient covenants for her.
But then, she wasn’t wholly indigenous to Earth. She was a unique, incredible hybrid who possessed the genetic material from two dimensions. He would never lay the blame of the past on her shoulders.
Yet he’d saved her before he’d known her true heritage.
Again, the futile hope that she was so much more than she could ever be echoed through his heart. It would be the answer for his insatiable desire, and the reason he craved her company.
“Is this about the woman you rescued from the Guardians?” Zad’s voice dragged him back to the present.
“Yes.”
“It’s no longer an inconvenience having her on your island.” It wasn’t a question. “The sex must be spectacular.”
“It’s not the—” He clamped his jaw shut. Zad was the last one he’d discuss his sex life with. “She had a necklace. It’s an exact replica of the ones we gave our beloveds. And do you know why she has it? Because she used to dream of archangel wings and rainbows as a child. She had it commissioned to her specific design.”
Zad gazed into the distance, his hands shoved into the pockets of his dusty jeans. Was Zad even going to acknowledge his words?
Finally, the other archangel turned to him, his face an inscrutable mask.
“It doesn’t mean anything. Children throughout the ages, throughout the universe, dream of rainbows and archangels for no other reason than both are”—he shrugged, and a mirthless smile tugged at his lips—“fantastical.”
Gabe forcibly relaxed his clenched fists. A buried sliver of sanity in a dark corner of his mind urged him to shut up, to leave, to forget about this madness.
But he couldn’t let it go. Not yet. Not while there was still the tiniest thread of hope in his heart.
“That’s not all. When she was asleep, she said—” The words lodged in his throat, burning. How could he repeat them, after so long? To anyone, but most of all to Zad, who had also loved Eleni?
Zad’s mahogany wings rippled in the breeze, and Gabe saw how his muscles tensed, and he understood. Because even after all this time, he, too, struggled against the instinct to soar to the mythical heavens.
“It doesn’t matter what she said.” Beneath his even tone, there was a harsh note of finality in Zad’s voice. “She’s not Eleni, Gabe. Neither first-generation Nephilim nor their descendants have souls to return to us. We’ve always known that.”
The knowledge was seared into the fabric of his being. The offspring of an archangel and a human, and all their descendants, was eternally damned. But still the irrational hope had flared that somehow, against every possibility and despite her Nephilim heritage, his Eleni had been reborn.
It was a fool’s dream. And while he was many things, he was no longer a fool. The necklace was a coincidence. There was no universal convergence, no karmic confluence.
Aurora hadn’t said she dreamed of archangel wings, after all. Aurora was not Eleni.
He would never have the chance to love her again, hear her laughter or hold her in his arms. Or be given a second chance to save her life the way he’d been unable to save her so many years ago.
“How long must we serve penance?” The words tore from him, bloodied chunks of his soul that would never heal.
“It’s not a sin to love again.” There was weary acceptance in Zad’s voice. “You’re not betraying Eleni’s memory.”
Gabe’s laugh was harsh, a mirthless sound in the arid air. Archangels rarely fell in love, and when they did, it was forever.
“You know we can have only one beloved.” The words ate into his heart like acid. “Like you said, it’s only spectacular sex.”
Zad finally turned to look at him, and Gabe saw fleeting desolation reflected in the other archangel’s dark eyes. “With the right one, sex heals the soul.”
Chapter 21
Aurora
“Finished.” The little girl leaned back in her chair, and Aurora could see what she had been doing. Painting seashells, in every color of the rainbow. “Can we give them to him now?”
I can’t understand what you’re saying. Yet the strange language made perfect sense.
“As soon as he gets home.” She was thinking in English. And yet the words were exotic, foreign. Unknowable.
The child’s laughter was pure and carefree, and Aurora smiled, vaguely bemused, although she wasn’t quite sure why.
Who is this child?
She seemed oddly familiar, with her curly blonde hair and kaleidoscopic eyes.
An elusive question drifted through her mind. Is this a dream?
She glanced around the kitchen and unease trickled along her spine. Had she been here before?
A shadow blocked out the sun and then he was there, and the world was filled with light and love as he pulled her and the child into his arms.
Silken feathers teased and caressed, belying their inherent strength, and she gasped, disoriented, as his wings embraced and claimed.
His wings.
“Aurora.” The way he breathed her name, so husky and seductive, sent tremors of an entirely different nature dancing over her skin. She wound her arms around his neck as he tugged his fingers through her hair, and the sun dimmed into a pre-dawn glow.
The dream fluttered through her mind, fading into mist-shrouded corners, and the intangible boundary between fantasy and memory merged, became one, as Gabe’s mouth claimed hers.
Sitting in the shade on Gabe’s terrace, elusive tendrils of Aurora’s early-morning dream haunted the edges of her mind, but the harder she tried to remember the details, the fainter they became.
It was so frustrating. She wasn’t sure why. It was only a dream. Yet she couldn’t shake the
certainty that if she could remember it, so many things would fall into place.
She let out a long breath. There was nothing to fall into place. What did that even mean? Right now, she was on Gabe’s island, but her real life was back in Cornwall.
There was no way she would ever forget that.
And that’s why she needed to stop obsessing over what Gabe was doing today and get back to researching the Guardians. It didn’t matter that after they’d spent the night having amazing sex, he’d disappeared this morning without even saying goodbye.
Her number one priority was discovering a way she could safely return home. But whenever she was with Gabe, that urgency faded.
Just as she had feared.
It was too easy to forget how impossible this was between them. The knowledge that one day she would never see him again twisted her heart inside out.
It was so much more than sex. And now she had to deal with the consequences of being stupid enough to fall for an archangel.
She was a mortal. How could she hope to defeat the protocols of an alien species that was older than anything she could imagine?
It wouldn’t be a hardship, staying on Gabe’s island, where she was safe. With him.
Isolated from everyone and everything she had ever loved. Crippled with guilt over abandoning her parents.
Inevitably growing old, while Gabe stayed forever in his gorgeous, irresistible prime.
And I’ll never have a family of my own.
She couldn’t accept that future. Not when she knew how fragile a person’s grasp on reality could be. Her parents shared an overwhelming love, but in the end even that hadn’t been enough.
Her goal was clear. Find a loophole in the ancient laws governing the Guardians’ rights and discover a chink in their armored protocols. Just because no one else ever had, didn’t mean it couldn’t be done.
Maybe no one had ever tried.
Grimly, she logged into her email account to check if there was a reply from her dad. She’d sent a message to both of her parents, but she doubted her mum would reply, since she’d given up checking her email over a year ago.
Except she had.
A reply from her mother was sitting in the inbox.
Wild hope flared. Maybe her telepathic interaction with Gabe yesterday had pulled her back from the shadows?
She opened the message.
He said we were never to speak of it, but how could we keep it a secret from our only child? I tried not to forget. Please forgive me, Aurora. And find your way home.
This was so not the response she’d been expecting. She didn’t even know how to reply. A quick glance at her dad’s message confirmed that whatever her mum was talking about, she hadn’t discussed it with him.
Much as she wanted to find out who the mysterious he was, she couldn’t risk her mum’s fragile health by asking in an email. All she could do was reassure her that everything was fine.
There’s nothing to forgive. Don’t worry about me! I’ll be home ASAP.
Since yesterday hadn’t given her anything to go on, she’d approach her research from a different angle today.
Guardian abductions.
And tumbled into a vortex of increasingly paranoid conspiracy theories. It was kind of shocking to discover that trait wasn’t confined to humans of Earth.
There were countless hypotheses as to why they abducted in the first place, and all of them were horrible. But the one that really snagged her attention was the idea they did it to feed their insatiable drug habit.
Feeding on the terror of mortals.
Sometimes those who had been taken turned up again, their memories hazy, their sanity compromised, and evidence of torture apparent. But at least they were still alive.
Hours later, she stumbled across the anomalies.
Hidden in obscure archives were brief reports of those suspected to have been abducted by them but who hadn’t returned alive. Those whose bodies had been drained of all fluid. She dug deeper, her stomach churning with horror at the images scrolling across the screen.
And almost missed it.
She zoomed in on the unfocused image. Around the woman’s neck was a chain. And the pendant was in the shape of wings.
Not just any wings. Even the poor quality of the image couldn’t disguise the shimmering rainbows or glittering gold dust that seemed to pulse with a life of its own.
Involuntarily, she curled her fingers around her necklace. She couldn’t shift the conviction there was a reason why this victim had possessed an identical piece of jewelry to the one Gabe’s daughter had worn. If only she could work it out. Where was Gabe when she needed to talk to him?
It was as though he heard her unspoken wish, as from the corner of her eye she saw him materialize.
“Gabe come here. You’ll never—” The words lodged in her throat as Mephisto, arms folded, dominated the terrace.
“Aurora.” His voice was low, but the menace in that one word sent a shudder along her spine.
She refused to wilt under his unblinking gaze. “Gabe’s not here.”
“It’s not Gabe I want to speak with.”
Well, shit.
Mephisto appeared far more intimidating when he wasn’t flashing his evil smile around. She flattened her hands on her thighs to stop them from shaking. No way did she want this arrogant bastard to guess how much he unnerved her.
“What do you want to know?”
His lips thinned. It appeared he didn’t like being questioned by a mere mortal.
“Tell me exactly what you did on the astral planes.”
“You know what I was doing. And so does Gabe.”
Mephisto unfolded his arms and his wings rippled in majestic affront. A merciless, immortal, predator stalking his prey.
She forced a panicked breath into her lungs. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of falling into a terrified heap at his feet.
“Tell Gabe whatever fucking fairy story you like. It won’t work with me. I’ll ask you one last time. What did you do on the astral planes?”
She could tell him about her mother. But this was the archangel who, for his own twisted motives, had taken her to that club. He wouldn’t care about her reasons, unlike Gabe. Somehow, recalling Gabe’s support gave her a shot of courage, and she pushed herself to her feet.
“I made a mistake.” It hurt, having to confess that to Mephisto, but it was only the truth. “And now I’m paying for it.”
His arm shot out, and although he didn’t touch anything, the laptop catapulted across the table and smashed onto the terrace.
“You’re paying for it?” He didn’t raise his voice, but his eyes burned crimson. She wanted to run and hide from the malice pulsing from him but couldn’t move a muscle. “I don’t see that. It’s the Archangel Gabriel who’s paying your debt, and I want to know what the fuck you did to him on the astral planes.”
Iced fear stabbed through her. What did he mean that Gabe was paying her debt? Immortals were beyond the grasp of the Guardians. She’d discovered that, and Gabe had confirmed it.
But what if we’re both wrong?
“Is Gabe in danger?” She’d never forgive herself. “I thought he was safe from them?”
Mephisto’s lip curled in contempt. “Last chance. Tell me how you dragged Gabe through the astral planes without his knowledge. If I’d known that was your plan, I would have fried your miserable brain two years ago.”
He thought she was responsible for Gabe’s arrival in the village? Through the astral planes? How did that even make any sense?
“I don’t have any idea how he—”
“Don’t think I won’t rip open your mind to find the truth if I have to, human.”
She believed him. And he would leave nothing of her mind behind afterward.
“I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t drag Gabe into anything.”
A phantom hand grasped her fingers and she staggered at the brutal grip. Mephisto’s fiery glare scorched her flesh, an
d it took every shred of willpower she possessed to remain standing upright.
“What are you?” Frustration throbbed with every word. It was obvious he wasn’t used to asking that question.
He tightened his psychic grip on her fingers. Pain raced up her arm and speared through her chest, arrowing toward her heart.
He was going to kill her. For now, he was playing, like a cat with a mouse, but he’d soon tire of that game. He’d rip through her mind, clawing for answers. And find nothing.
How easy it would be to fall to her knees. To grovel at his feet and beg for mercy. He’d spare my life, then.
The certainty was absolute. Ancient knowledge. And with it came a cold fury that ignited her paralyzed brain and pumped blood through her deadened fingers. She straightened her spine and pushed back with her mind. Fuck you, Meph.
Mephisto recoiled, denial spiking from him like supercharged lightning. The air around them crackled with singed energy as the crimson in his eyes faded and his psychic grip vanished. Their gazes clashed, but the deadly disdain had given way to incredulity. Awe.
She no longer feared him as a terrifying creature who could crush her to dust with merely a look.
And he knew it.
A thud echoed behind her and then Gabe was there, grabbing Mephisto’s biceps, and the uncanny connection severed.
“Back off.” It was a deadly warning.
Mephisto wrenched himself free, his eyes never leaving Aurora.
“How can this be?” His voice was oddly hushed, and shivers skated over her arms.
Gabe appeared oblivious to Mephisto’s strange behavior. “Don’t come near Aurora again.”
“She’s just a human.” Mephisto stared at Gabe as if he’d never seen him before. Was it her imagination or did he sound as though he was trying to convince himself as much as Gabe?
“Get out of here.”
Mephisto gave her one last, inscrutable glance. And then he vanished.
* * *
Mephisto
Mephisto found Zad at a Taoist retreat hidden deep in the sacred mountains of China. He leaned against a timber support of the hut Zad had acquired and glowered at the magnificent panorama.
Redemption: A Realm of Flame and Shadow Novel Page 16
