Saving Angel (A Divisa Novel, Book 1)

by Weil, J. L.

  What?

  Umm Mr. Death, I didn’t quite get all that. Could you please explain it in terms I understand?

  But it was already done, and it wasn’t like he could hear me.

  Without any kind of warning, that wonderful feeling of nothingness vanished. I was hurled back into the living, back into my battered body. On a gasp, I breathed my first breath of air again. It washed down my lungs and started my still heart. Blood flowed through my veins turning from cold to warm.

  My dark blue eyes weren’t lifeless anymore as they looked into Chase’s shimmering silver. I could see the whoosh of breath he’d been holding. The tension and agony left his body.

  “Chase, what have you done?” Travis asked.

  Just as fast as my heart beat again so did the flare of pain. I thrashed on the ground, my eyes stinging with tears. I cried out as my hip burned like it was on fire. I curled into a little ball, and the smell of searing flesh permeated the night’s air. My hand gripped Lexi’s, and her tears turned to concentration.

  “Oh my God Chase, you bargained for her life,” she said, understanding lighting her eyes.

  I don’t think either of them had been paying much attention to Chase while he was wheeling and dealing with Death. They had been too clouded with their grief.

  “What’s wrong? Why is she in pain?” Travis demanded, unsettled.

  “Chase!” Lexi cried.

  He rocked back off his knees, putting his head in hands. “She is being marked,” he told them.

  They both snapped their heads up. “Marked?” Travis repeated.

  He just nodded, looking utterly defeated and tired.

  “Are you nuts? Do you know what you have done?” Travis said between gritted teeth.

  “What would you have me do? Let her die?” he yelled back.

  “And you think this is a better option for her?” Travis shot back.

  “Hell came for her. Do you hear me? Hell. I wasn’t going to let Death take her there.”

  Travis’s turquoise eyes searched his cousin’s. Whatever he saw there, made him nod in understanding.

  “I couldn’t,” Chase murmured, quietly dejected.

  Ever so slowly the pain receded, degree by slow degree. Lexi the compassionate friend that she was, never left my side. I was eternally grateful. I don’t really know how to explain the pain, it was worse than dying and that had to mean something. There was nothing I could compare it to.

  When I was finally able to speak, I laid on my back with Chase leaning over me. “What did you just do?” I croaked.

  “Don’t ask,” Travis muttered.

  I glanced from Travis to Lexi. Her eyes were brimming with fresh tears. “Don’t you ever die on me again,” she said, her voice clouded

  “I can’t make any promises,” I said, my lips upturning at the corners. “Is someone going to tell me what just happened?”

  “Later,” Chase said, grinning foolishly. “I need to get you home.”

  Home. The word never sounded so sweet. Spring Valley was my home.

  Chapter 28

  It literally killed me to not be able to play Xbox. As it happen, being brought back from the dead does not instantly heal all wounds.

  What utter crap. Who made these rules?

  After everything that happened though, I sustained only minimal injury. Death seemed to have repaired most of my body’s damage. The cracked ribs were just sore, and the cuts on my face and neck were invisible. It was the mark on my hip that gave me the most problems. Occasionally it flamed, like it needed to remind me it was there.

  Lexi was on the chaise lounge examining her nails. “My manicure is shot,” she complained pouting.

  Everyone ignored her. Travis nudged me with his knee. “How are you feeling?”

  The question of the hour…or every hour it seemed. They were all so worried about how I was doing. I couldn’t really blame them. None of us had any experience with what had gone down. I kind of got the feeling like they were waiting for something gargantuan to happen.

  Truly, I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt. There was definitely something different about me, but I was too much of a wimp to really try and figure it out. Being blissfully ignorant sounded pretty darn good at this point. Look where being a nosey neighbor got me?

  I didn’t want to sound like a whiny bitch. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to be alive, yet sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if we had defied the laws of nature too much, and my being here was wrong.

  I shrugged. “Better than I would have thought,” I admitted.

  He leaned his elbow on the back of the couch. “This is just too crazy to even think about.”

  “You have no idea,” I muttered.

  His expression fell flat, losing the glisten in his eyes. “I do understand why he did it though. If I was given the chance to save Emma, I wouldn’t have even hesitated – not for a second.”

  A part of me felt guilty that I had lived. Travis lost the love of his life and I…well Chase and I definitely did not share that same kind of all consuming love. What we had was more like combustible lust.

  Casting my eyes down, I fumbled with the fabric on the couch. “I’m eternally grateful that he saved me. More than I could ever say but our relationship is complicated. It isn’t a fraction of what you and Emma had. He doesn’t care about me like that.” Risking a glance up, I found his eyes sparkling.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said, his lips curling secretly.

  Lexi couldn’t wait to give her chatty two-cents. “You wouldn’t know love if it hit you smack in the middle of the forehead. You are so oblivious. There are at least a dozen guys at school who check out your ass every day and you couldn’t be the wiser.”

  “You. Are. Nuts,” I emphasized each word for dramatic effect. She didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

  She rolled her eyes. “Just saying. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

  Maybe not, but when I was up against girls like her and Sierra, I didn’t stand a chance.

  Chase came into the room and flashed a disarming smile my way. He’s been doing that a lot lately and it was making my head spin. I don’t know what kind of game he had going, but I wasn’t going to play.

  He sauntered like he had all the time in the world. The whole room was bursting with his presence. I, on the other hand, was filled with a calm relief, and it wasn’t the first time I felt that way when he was near. He still made my heart go bonkers, but it quieted the jumping anxiety I was hit with when we were apart. I figured it was aftershocks from the ordeal I’d just gone through. There probably wasn’t anybody who wouldn’t feel some apprehension after being a demon’s toy.

  “Let me see it,” he demanded in a voice that made my stomach drop.

  I gave him the stink eye. He only grinned, loving each uncomfortable moment.

  Crossing his arms over his chest he added, “We can do this the hard way or the easy way. It’s up to you.”

  Huffing, I stood up meeting him toe-to-toe and whipped up my shirt. The smile on his face only grew at my exaggerated actions.

  His fingers skimmed the tops of my jeans, flirting over the still slightly red skin around the black mark. My belly jumped on contact, and I glared at him with challenging eyes, daring him to be a smartass.

  “It looks like you have a little bit of demon in you Angel Eyes,” he just said, holding my gaze. His hand lingered on the mirror image to the one he had on his hip. I couldn’t figure out if he was talking about the symbol or my attitude. Probably both.

  He seemed to be always finding little ways to touch me. It was disconcerting to say the least.

  I studied the intricate design with its tribal swirls as his fingers traced the lines. Swallowing hard, I fought the wave of hormones swimming to the surface. If I didn’t stop him now, I was going to do something outrageous and embarrass myself. “I’m fine,” I assured, swiping at his hand and tugged my shirt down.

  Chase and I
had matching tattoos. Wasn’t that just too cute for words?

  It made me gag.

  Slouching back down into the couch cushions, I scowled when he sat on the other side of me. I felt like I was smooshed in a demon sandwich, Chase on one side and Travis on the other.

  Chase casually put his arm behind me and was twiddling with strands of my hair. There he went touching me again. It was like he couldn’t be near me and not touch me somehow. The fact that I liked it way too much was reason enough to put an end to it.

  I knocked his hand away. “Stop it.”

  This only made him smirk. “You know that only makes me to do it more.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Find a way to control yourself.”

  “I am finding it harder and harder to do just that.”

  Travis snickered beside me, and I elbowed him in the gut. “Try harder,” I advised.

  His laugh was dark and sexy. I wanted to not be affected by it, I really did. This tie we knew nothing about made me question everything I was feeling. I didn’t know what was real, and what was a byproduct of our being linked.

  How had my life derailed so drastically? My future was looking sort of bleak. Chase had explained what he could about what happened, but even he wasn’t sure of all that it entailed. The best he could tell me was that our lives were intertwined in a way that kept me alive, but at the same time put me in constant danger.

  The best thing for me would be to stay as far away as possible from Chase. But I couldn’t. I now bared the mark of a Divisa, except I wasn’t half-demon. Though I wasn’t even sure I was human anymore either.

  What do you call someone who has died, only to come back from the dead with the mark of a half-demon on their hip?

  I’ll tell you – screwed.

  In my book that would make me a vampire or a zombie, but I wasn’t one of those either. I didn’t have any special powers. I didn’t have any crazy speeds. As far as I could tell, I was just me. Angel Morgan, a girl living next to a family of half-demons.

  Yes, I had died. Yes, I had comeback from the dead and in that transition I was tied to Chase and his demon for…well eternity.

  Lucky me.

  Because of the pact he made with Death, I am now marked with Chase’s family crest so to say. So I get all the hellish pleasantries of being hunted. Every dark, nasty, and scary thing from the underworld would be looking for me. That included the human hunters.

  I am not sure the bargain he made was worth saving my life. Who knew what was out there ready to suck me dry again, or put a bullet through my chest. I never did ask how the hunters killed a Divisa. I guess now I’d have plenty of time to find out.

  So yeah, the best thing for the old Angel would have been to stay as far away as possible. That was all hindsight and didn’t do me a flying monkey ass of good.

  The new Angel?

  Well what choice did she have, but to stay as close as to Chase as possible?

  Being bonded to Chase Winters was going to suck. And probably more hell than I bargained for. Everything else in my life was just gravy.

  My body was still healing, and I was easily drained. “I should probably get home,” I said, getting to my feet.

  Chase stood with me, walking me next door. He leaned in the doorway, filling it with his presence. I had my quota of Chase Winters for one day and all his little touches. A part of me wanted distance and another part of me was pleading for him to stay. He must have sensed my inner turmoil.

  “You can run Angel, but I’ll always find you,” he said, smirking.

  My humor vanished. “Bite me.” We were really going to have to get a handle on this whole bond thing.

  “Gladly,” he returned, arching his pierced brow.

  How I ever thought that was endearing escaped me. Smiling sweetly, I gave him the only hand gesture a jackass like him could understand. “Kiss ass.” Then I slammed the front door in his face, smothering his sinful laugh.

  Angel and Chase’s story continues in…

  HUNTING ANGEL

  Also look for the prequel available fall 2012

  LOSING EMMA

  ~*~*~*~

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