Rogue Angel

by Stephani Hecht

  “Just humor me by answering one question. Why are we knocking to get in?” Appolion asked, tilting his head to the side to get a better look at her legs. Injured or not, he could have looked at them all day. “Couldn’t you have just flashed us into their living room?”

  “Sure,” she replied as she continued to knock. “But it would be rude just to barge in on someone like that.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t want someone to accuse you of being rude, that would be just tragic.” He started to roll his eyes, but the movement made his stomach flip so he stopped that nonsense right away.

  The door suddenly opened and a small pixie of an angel stood there. She had enormous brown eyes, her light brown hair pulled into two pigtails. She wore a pair of hip hugger jeans and a tight pink sweater. A white Persian cat was nestled in her arms. Appolion shook his head and looked closer because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing as the cat’s fur was spiked and tipped with black.

  The female pursed her lips together, then explained, “Bear thinks it’s a hoot to make Hairball’s fur match his current hairstyle. Can you believe that I have to live with that?”

  “You named your cat Hairball?”

  “No, her real name is Snowball. Bear calls her Hairball and the stupid little traitor refuses to answer to anything else now.”

  “Tiffany.” Ana waved her hand in order to get the female’s attention. “Is Bear and Uriel here? I need to speak with them.”

  The small angel’s gaze traveled up and down slowly. “You forgot your pants.”

  Ana closed her eyes for a second before she fixed the ditsy female with a stern glare.

  Appolion finally got a glimpse of the uptight Ana.

  “Yeah, Tiffany you nailed that one right on the head. I just go around now randomly forgetting to put on articles of clothing. Just the other day I put my underwear over my jeans and paraded around the streets of Flint.”

  Tiffany gave her the hand, “Whatever.”

  A male voice came from behind her. “Tif, who is it?”

  “It’s just some more of Bear’s freaky family,” she shouted back.

  “Oh good, Cam, I’m glad you finally made it.” A tall male archangel, with brown hair, opened up the door all the way. When he saw who was really there, his hazel eyes widened in surprise. “Ana, I didn’t expect to see you here anytime soon and with your new friend, too.”

  “Sorry to barge in, Uriel, but we have nowhere else to go. My new friend is Abdiel’s younger brother, Appolion.”

  “I know exactly who he is.” Uriel leaned his head out the door and scanned the street. “I also know we need to get both of your hides inside before you’re spotted.”

  “That might be a problem,” Appolion argued as he felt a small panic build up inside him. “I’ve never been inside an angel dwelling before. I don’t know how your protective barriers will affect me.”

  Uriel gave a wicked grin.

  Grabbed by the shirt collar, Appolion was hauled across the doorway. Weak from the demon’s blood, he couldn’t fight. Once inside, he stood for a moment and waited for the worst. Yeah, he felt sicker than a dog, but that was from the poison. The house had not affected him at all. He still shot a murderous look at the archangel.

  Uriel didn’t act one bit sorry, he just held up his hands and said, “Looks like you handled the protective spells just fine.”

  “What if I hadn’t?” Appolion snarled.

  Uriel raised a brow at Ana. “He’s just as bullheaded as Abdiel. By the way, do your brothers know he marked you yet? Because if not, I would love to be there when Ramiel finds out. He’s going to blow a gasket.”

  Appolion closed his eyes and groaned. He forgot all males instinctively knew when a female was marked. Her brothers were all going to know just what he did with their only sister as soon as they laid eyes on her. That was going to make for a real interesting, Hi, nice to meet ya.

  Almost as if to prove his point, Bear came tearing up to him out of nowhere and punched him in the jaw. Appolion staggered back several steps before he was able to recover and get off a weak clip of his own. All that seemed to do was make the empath even more mad.

  “You stupid son of a bitch, you almost killed her,” Bear growled before he lunged again.

  Uriel grabbed his empath and hauled him back. “What has gotten into you?”

  “I just freaking saw what happened to them. Jackass here had put an angel harness on my sister and she couldn’t flash away when they were attacked.”

  Ana gasped, “How could you of know that, Bear? You weren’t there.”

  “I heard you in my head and knew you were in trouble. So I connected with you and saw what happened.”

  “Just when were you going to tell me you could do something like that?” Ana asked angrily.

  “I don’t know, eventually. What’s the big freaking deal anyway? This family seems to thrive on keeping secrets anymore.” Bear stopped, looked closely at her and hissed in displeasure as he seemed to sense the mark, too. Then his gaze roved up and down, taking in her half naked state. His face grew stormy before he quickly pulled a cell phone out of his pocket.

  “Bear, don’t you dare call the others,” Ana tied to snatch it out of his hands.

  He dodged her. “No way, Ana, I am so telling the rest of the family unit about this. Cam should have listened to me the first time.”

  Appolion wanted to help her, but his vision darkened around the edges as the poison made him even sicker. Tiffany stared intently at him as she continued to stoke her damn ugly cat. He swayed on his feet and clutched the wall for support. Bear noticed the small female’s fixation and it seemed to make him even more pissy.

  “Why are you gawking at my sister’s mate like that?” Bear demanded.

  “I’m just waiting,” Tif replied in a singsong voice.

  “For what, you airhead?”

  Appolion crashed face first on the floor.

  “For that,” Tiffany replied.

  It was the last thing he heard before he went unconscious.

  * * * *

  “What did you do to him?” Ana yelled at Bear as she went down on her knees next to Appolion.

  “Nothing, honest.” Bear held up his hands innocently.

  “No, you hit him.” Tiffany pointed an accusing finger at him.

  Ana gently smacked the side of Appolion’s face. He didn’t move a muscle. “Did Bear hurt him?”

  “Please.” Tiffany rolled those big brown eyes. “Like his scrawny little self could do anything like that to an archangel.”

  “Hey!” Bear protested, looking hurt.

  Tiffany took Hairball and handed her off to Bear. Bear scratched the animal behind its dyed ears and held it close to his chest. The cat immediately started to purr loudly and gave a smug look as it snuggled in his arms. Tiffany looked down. “Your male has been shot and poisoned. Flash him up to my room and I’ll heal him for you.”

  Relief washed over Ana. Appolion was just wounded. That would explain why Tiffany watched him so closely. As a healer, she instantly knew he was hurt.

  “Don’t worry, Ana.” Bear touched her shoulder. “Tiffany may be annoying, but she’s a good healer. She’ll make Appolion better. I’m sorry I hit him and all. I promise I won’t tell the others anything until you’re ready.”

  Ana reached up and grabbed his hand. “Thanks, Bear. Why didn’t Appolion tell me he was hurt?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Uriel drawled. “Maybe he didn’t want to show any weakness in case Bear or I decided to attack first and ask questions later.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bear repeated.

  “You’re such a creation.” Tiffany wrinkled her nose.

  “You’re such a ditz,” Bear shot back.

  She curled up her hands into tiny fists and stomped her foot. “I hate you.”

  “Ditto, now why don’t you run along and make a detailed entry in your diary about how passion pink lipstick is so much better than racy red.”

  “Y
ou…you…you dork.”

  “Good comeback there, Little Miss. Diva.”

  Uriel stepped between them. “All right, that’s enough out of you two. I’m flashing Appolion to your room now, Tif.”

  After Uriel left with Appolion, Tiffany gave Bear one last disgusted look before she flounced up the stairs. Bear glared after her before his eyes shifted down some and he got a curious look on his face. He shook his head like as if to deny some inner thought before he gave his attention to his sister.

  “Come on and I’ll give you something to wear.” The cat was now sleeping in his arms and looked like it was planning on staying put for a while. “Ramiel would tear me a new one if he knew I let you prance around with your rump hanging out.”

  “Since when is Ramiel in charge of this family?” She got up and tried to act as dignified as possible and failed miserably because her butt did almost hang out.

  “Ever since this family went from nurturing mode to defense mode.”

  She wanted to argue that on, but knew he was right. Ever since Cam’s incident, the entire family had been on guard at all times because they knew they all had a target on their backs. Since Ramiel was the oldest of the brothers and an archangel, it was only natural he would take charge of protecting his sibs.

  Leave it to Bear to point out the obvious. He was always the first one to point out the elephant in the middle of the room and want to fix it. His own special talents notwithstanding. He may have been the youngest, but he was always trying to be the peacemaker. She fingered his new black highlights. “This looks so much better than the blue ones.”

  “Yeah, well variety is the spice of life.”

  “Since when did Uriel change his mind and let you start dying your hair again?”

  “A couple of months ago,” he replied.

  It reminded her how long it was since she saw him. Both of their duties had made family gatherings a little hard. “When were you planning on telling us that your psychic abilities had shown themselves?”

  He nibbled on his thumbnail, something he always did whenever nervous or in trouble. “I dunno, soon. I just realized myself the other day. I was sitting at the table eating breakfast and bam, I’m in Cam’s head.”

  “Oh, that must have been a scary place to be.”

  “You have no freaking idea.” He gave her a dry look. “He wasn’t exactly alone at the time. That is one visual I really didn’t need.”

  She gave a worried glance up the stairs. “Are you sure Tiffany is going to be okay? Maybe I should call Derel and have him help Appolion.”

  “Word of advice, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to have too many of us brothers around your boyfriend right now.”

  “Bear, you really need to give it a rest. Appolion’s here to stay.”

  “I know, you just need to give all of us some time to adjust to the fact our only sister is mated to a rogue angel. You just couldn’t pick any old male, no it had to be the Destroyer.”

  “Don’t talk about him that way.” She was appalled to feel tears build in her eyes. She had never been a crier and lately it seemed to be the only thing she did. “It’s not like we meant for any of this to happen, it just did.”

  Bear’s face softened. “You really love him that much, huh?”

  She nodded and wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve.

  Bear sighed heavily. “Come on, let’s go to my room and get you some pants so you can go check on your Destroyer.”

  * * * *

  Appolion heard someone singing in his right ear. He slowly opened up his eyes and saw Tiffany seated next to him. She had a pair of ear buds in and was totally engrossed in painting her toenails. He sat up in the bed and saw he was smack dab in the middle of a pink nightmare. The carpet was pink, the walls were pink, the furniture was pink, shit even the laptop on her desk was pink.

  Ana was curled up in a chair next to the bed, sound asleep and her little punk bother was sitting next to her, playing a handheld video game. He would pause every so often to push the cat off his lap, but it just kept jumping back on every time.

  “Damn it, Hairball, not right now,” Bear bitched.

  “Well, stop calling it to you then,” Appolion whispered as talking any louder was going to hurt his pounding head too much.

  Bear’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I’m not calling the stupid thing to me.”

  “Yes you are, dumbass. You’re sending out a psychic signal that is attracting it to you.”

  Tiffany popped out her ear buds and threw a pillow at Bear. “So that’s why my cat is always following you around. You’ve been sneaking and using your mind to call him.”

  “You’re just jealous because I have a mind,” Bear snapped back. “Now that Appolion is up, can I please take him to the guest bedroom so we can get the heck out of Tiffany Land?”

  “Why the hell am I in here? Couldn’t she just as easily healed me in another bedroom?” Appolion asked, mostly to stop them from arguing anymore.

  “Tif likes to heal in her own bedroom,” Bear said nastily before he switched to a fake valley girl accent. “Because she so totally does better in her own element, for sure.”

  “You just wait until the next time you need healed.” She stood up and put one hand on her hip. “I’m just going to let you bleed out while you cry like a little girl.”

  Ana woke up and stretched. “Don’t you two ever stop?”

  Uriel walked into the room. “No, they never do.” He gave them a warning glare. “After a while you learn how to tune it out and make it all white noise.”

  Somehow Appolion doubted he would ever be able to do that. He’d only been around Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumb for only a few minutes and was ready to strangle them. He decided he would start with Ana’s bratty baby brother first, then move on to the female. He would even off their ugly cat, too, just for spite. “How long have I been out of it?”

  “One whole day,” Tiffany answered. “I gave you the antidote for the poison and healed up both the gunshots and some old wounds you had left. When I talked to Gabi she said she didn’t have the chance to heal them completely the last time she saw you.”

  “Gabi knows I’m here?” Appolion directed his question to Ana. “So does that mean Abdiel knows, too?”

  “Yes he does.” Ana grabbed his hand and gave it a kiss. She ignored Bear’s snort of disgust. “He said that if you needed him he would come, otherwise he was going to stay away until you are ready to see him.”

  “For the first time since I can remember I am ready to see the rest of my family.” He toyed with her fingers. “Thanks to you.”

  “Oh man, I just vurped,” Bear whined.

  “What the fuck does vurp mean?” Appolion snapped.

  Tiffany sighed. “It’s when you vomit and burp at the same time.”

  Appolion rubbed his temples. “If my head didn’t hurt me so bad, Koala Bear, I would take you out back and beat your ass.”

  “If I had a nickel for every time…” Bear said softly, never looking up from his game.

  Uriel kicked Bear’s chair before saying, “I just got off the phone with Michael.”

  Bear gave Ana a wicked smirk. “Does Uncle Mike know his only niece has been scrumping Appolion?”

  “Shut up!” The entire room said simultaneously. Bear flipped them all off and grinned.

  “As I was saying,” Uriel gave his empath another warning glare, “Michael was troubled by the fact the justice angels attacked with deadly force. He wants you guys to stay put for now. He said whatever you do, don’t go to Heaven until he knows it’s safe.”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, us staying here,” Appolion argued. “This is going to be the first place the justice angels are going to look.”

  “In order to get into this house, they’ll have to get through me first,” Uriel said darkly. “Your brother isn’t the only archangel that has a reputation for being cranky if crossed.”

  “Then how is it these two have lived
so long?” Appolion pointed at Tif and Bear.

  “Thing One and Thing Two have a way of growing on you. Usually Bear isn’t this much of a jerk, he’s just kind of protective over his family.”

  “Of which you are officially a part of now.” Bear gave a drool look. “So if Michael says it’s safer for you to stay here, then you’re staying here.”

  Appolion was beginning to feel like he had no control over anything and that wasn’t a feeling he liked. “What are you going to do to me if I refuse, Bear, puke on me?” Empaths like Bear were notorious barfers. It was just in the nature of their makeup. If they got too many evil vibes, they got overwhelmed. It started with the shakes and vomiting followed by, if it went on too long, a comatose state. That’s what happened to Ana’s parents.

  “You know, I just might do that.” Bear gave another of his annoying smiles. “If you try to leave, I’ll just call all my brothers and we’ll make you stay. We can’t have you going out and getting yourself destroyed. It would make Ana upset and we don’t like it when Ana is upset.”

  Ana put her face in her hands. “You’re killing me here, Bear,” she moaned. “Why can’t I belong to a normal family?”

  Bear got up and kissed the top of her head. “Normal would be boring. Now I’m going to go and get you and the Dickstroyer some food. You want anything, Tif?”

  “Are you cooking or buying takeout?” the small healer asked wearily.

  “Please, like I would poison my own sister, I’m getting takeout.”

  “Okay, you know what I like.”

  Bear stared hard at ugly cat and it galloped over to Tiffany and started to figure eight through her legs. He clucked his tongue. “What do you know, Appolion was right. I can control Hairball with my mind. Cool.” He started to leave, but stopped and looked at Tiffany. “Thanks for healing my sister’s mate by the way.”