He wanted to smile when it dawned on him.
The hunter in her.
Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.
The question was, was she using her duty as a hunter to merely learn more about him, or was learning about him an excuse to linger on the roof with him?
He wouldn’t deny her information either way. Her legion of mortals weren’t strong enough to detain him if he wanted to leave, and he wanted her to be more comfortable around him. If learning about him would grant her that comfort, would bring her closer to him, then he would answer any question she posed.
“One of the huntresses mentioned she had wanted to leave to find reinforcements… and then she had wanted to stay.” Emelia held his gaze, hers impassive as she studied him, but he could see beyond the veil to her rising nerves. Whatever she wanted to ask, it unsettled her for some reason. “Sable told me you can control weak-minded people—”
She cut herself off when he frowned at her.
Sable was more trouble than he had realised. She had been poisoning Emelia’s mind.
“I cannot manipulate you.” He barely dulled the sharp edge to his tone. “You are too strong.”
That seemed to relieve her.
A sharp sensation shot down his spine. Not now. He gritted his teeth and ignored the summons from his superiors. They could wait. He didn’t want to leave her.
“What’s wrong?” Her dark eyebrows knitted and he realised he wasn’t the only one who could see through someone to the real them.
She could read him too.
“A summons,” he muttered. “It can wait.”
She tilted her head back and her eyes traced across the night sky. “Won’t you get into trouble?”
Was she looking for Heaven? She wouldn’t find it there. As Hell was linked to this plane, so was his. It was above her world, but not. She had been to Hell, so he presumed she knew it was a different plane, another dimension in simple terms.
She lowered her gaze back to him. “You should go.”
He shrugged. “I do not want to.”
The corners of her lips curled, but the smile died before it could manifest. “You’ll get in trouble.”
He had the feeling he had been in trouble from the moment he had met her. “No worse than usual.”
He ignored so many summons that his superiors had once joked about fitting him with a GPS anklet because it appeared he kept getting lost and someone had to keep finding him.
“Go.” She looked ready to shove him.
He didn’t like that at all. Now she wanted him to leave? Had he outstayed his welcome or done something wrong? He really needed to read up on relationships, or at least on females. He was finding it hard to fathom what she wanted when she kept changing her mind.
“You were asking me questions, though.” And he had been enjoying it. “If I leave, will you permit me to return another day? I would speak with you again if you would allow it.”
She stifled a smile that was at odds with the nerves he felt rising inside her.
“You’re so formal…” A frown wrinkled her button nose. “What am I meant to call you? It’s weird I don’t know what to call you.”
Not really.
“You may call me Fourth Commander.”
She pulled a face at that and it was his turn to frown at her.
“I can’t call you a title. Is a title who you are?” She seemed to have forgotten the nerves he had stirred in her by asking to see her again, although he wasn’t sure he was glad of it, as she now appeared determined to make him question himself.
Was a title who he was? A title was enough for him. It was more than many angels bore.
“Everything has a name,” she said. “Hell, my childhood pets had names. I named the damned spiders in the garden too.”
“It is all I require,” he countered, his mood taking a dark turn as he considered what she had said.
She had given wild arachnids names and he didn’t have one to offer her. Did that mean she would see him as something less than a common garden spider?
“You really should have a name. It’s stupid… not having a name. Sable is right about that.” Her eyes lit up. “I could call you what Sable did, although I imagine you wouldn’t like it.”
He glared at her now. He remembered what the half-breed had called him.
Tall, Dark and Pompous.
“I would rather you did not.” He folded his arms across his chest and grimaced as the wound on his side pulled. She glanced down at the spot above his hip and looked as if she might ask about it, so he continued. “Do I really require a name? Is it not something you can overcome?”
She shook her head, his wound forgotten. “It’s just strange. Maybe I could grow used to it, if you insisted on having no name.”
Was she planning to see him enough to grow used to things about him?
Heat spread through him at the thought and he took it as a sign she did want to see him again, would allow him to visit her another time, and perhaps more than once. If he visited her enough, he might come to understand her, and she might open up enough to tell him more about the dragon.
Then he could hunt the bastard down and slay him.
“Your eyes are shifting again and it’s cold. I’d rather you kept your temper in check.” Her soft words tugged him back from his pleasant thoughts and he reined his mood in before it slipped beyond his control. Another frown put a furrow in her brow. “I don’t like it when you lose your temper. It’s cold and dark…”
He didn’t like the way she trailed off, or how she wrapped her arms around her waist to tightly hug herself as if she feared she was falling apart.
“I apologise.” He bowed his head.
“No problem, TeeDeePee.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “TeeDeePee?”
“Short for Tall, Dark and Pompous.”
If she wanted him to keep his mood in check, she was going about it the wrong way.
“Fourth Commander,” he said.
“EffSee.” She pulled a face. “Echelon?”
She was determined to give him a name. It wasn’t going to happen.
He huffed. “Do you like your name? Do you feel it suits you?”
A little shrug. “I like it. Sometimes people can’t spell it. I can’t tell you how many Starbucks I’ve had where they’ve called me Amelia. Sometimes people try to shorten it.”
The flicker of disgust in her green eyes said that didn’t go down well with her.
“Shorten it?” He tried to think of ways to shorten her name, none of which he would tell her, because he was enjoying this easy banter.
She was slowly relaxing again and had forgotten he was meant to be leaving, both of which were good things.
She nodded. “Mostly to Em.”
“Em.” He liked that. It had a cute ring to it, the sort of name a lover might whisper in her ear.
The look in her eyes said she hated it, though.
He looked himself over, from his black leather shoes, up his trousers, to his turtleneck sweater.
What name would suit him?
He lifted his eyes to lock with hers and that heat flooded him again, stirring hungers best denied, ones that were new and startlingly powerful.
“Your eyes are shifting again,” she murmured, a little breathless, her voice softer than before, barely there as she stared deep into his eyes, as if he had cast a spell on her. “You look like a wolf.”
“I am an angel,” he countered, a little too deadpan judging by how the corners of her lips tilted in that teasing way he had never seen before tonight.
“I know that, but you keep looking at me like a predator.” Her voice dropped lower, but he still heard her. “As if you want to devour me.”
He did, but not in the way she meant it.
She took a step back and he barely stopped himself from moving one towards her. It was hard, but he let her distance herself and dragged his gaze away from her, fixing it back on the stars so
he was no longer unsettling her. He needed to handle her carefully. Gently. How did one go about that?
“Why do you want to fight the dragon?” Her words drifted around him as he focused on the stars.
“I simply want justice served to him.” A lie.
“Other huntresses were taken… hurt worse than me. Some were killed. Do you want to avenge them too?”
He picked out one star and fixated on it. It was brighter than the others, flashed blue and gold. “After I have dealt with your dragon.”
“He isn’t my dragon,” she snapped and he had the feeling he had hit a raw nerve.
“My apologies,” he murmured, distracted by the star. Was it a binary? Two stars snared in an orbit that had them crossing paths at intervals. He knew how that felt now. How long would it be before he could cross paths with Emelia again?
The fire arcing down his spine said it might be a while if he didn’t return to his superiors soon to see what they wanted. He had been confined to Echelon headquarters for a lunar cycle once, his punishment for what they had termed his ‘disobedience’. That time, they hadn’t been joking.
A lunar cycle locked away from Emelia, only able to watch her from afar, would be torture now he knew the sound of her voice, the sweet scent of her perfume, and had been close to her.
“So you want to kill him just because he hurt a human?” Her voice gained strength and her mood shifted, darker emotions surfacing.
She didn’t believe him.
“I am an angel.” An excuse, and a good one as far as he could tell.
Mortals believed angels watched over them, protecting them from afar, and he was sure that by now, she knew that he was a demon hunter like her, tracked and killed any creature who was a danger to her kind.
It was possible she would believe him.
“I don’t buy it,” she bit out.
Perhaps not, then.
She moved a step closer and his senses lit up, that heat she caused inside him rising another ten degrees, until he was burning with a need to look at her again and see how near to him she was.
Until he was on fire with the hunger to reach out, slide his arm around her narrow waist, and draw her against him.
He forced his eyes to remain on the stars, because she could read him, and he didn’t want her to know the real reason he needed to kill the dragon.
He was unequipped to deal with her, uneducated in the ways of relationships, but he was old enough and wise enough to know that telling her he desired to slay the dragon because it had harmed her and that he would kill anyone who had done such a thing to her, including another angel, would only end with her leaving and never wanting to see him again.
Which was hardly surprising, but also unfair.
He wasn’t sure he had much control when it came to Emelia. The anger that had awoken in him when he had seen through her eyes the things the dragon had done to her, the torment she had suffered, was too powerful to wrestle into submission. He needed to do this for her, could only keep denying the deep and consuming hunger to hunt and destroy the dragon for so long before it devoured what little control he had and he found himself traversing the distance between this world and a place that was forbidden.
Hell.
He would go there, whether she wanted it or not. Whether he wanted it or not. He had to go. The dragon was there, and he wouldn’t be able to settle until he knew the male was dead and would never harm Emelia again.
All he could do was prepare himself for that day as best he could, and that meant learning as much as possible about the dragon, which meant convincing Emelia to confide in him and trust him to carry out this task for her.
“What do you think will happen if you kill Zephyr?” she husked in a tight voice, one that cracked on that bastard’s name.
Zephyr.
He had a lead at last, but at what cost?
Tears lined Emelia’s dark lashes and she turned her face away from him. Her shoulders shook as she closed her eyes, and he ached to reach for her, to lay his hand gently on her cheek and reassure her that whatever nightmare she had survived, it would never happen to her again. A fool’s move and one he wouldn’t make.
He had seen other males attempt to touch her in order to comfort her, and she had lashed out at all of them, driving them away.
A male’s touch terrified her now.
When her head lifted and her eyes opened, rising to lock with his, he realised he had made another mistake. It wasn’t fear or pain that had her trembling. It was anger. It flashed in her green irises as she glared at him.
“Do you think I’ll hug you, and pet you, and squeeze you and call you George?” She hurled the words at him and scoffed when he frowned, confused by them. “Of course you wouldn’t know the reference. You’re an angel. Go back to your world, Fourth Commander.”
She meant to push him away. It wasn’t going to happen.
Without missing a beat, he said, “George? I like that name.”
Horror danced in her eyes as they shot wide. “No. You don’t. It doesn’t suit you.”
Had she considered names that might suit him then?
He smiled. “What about Jorge?”
The horrified expression on her face only worsened, but a touch of colour stained her cheeks for some reason.
“No,” she stuttered, recovering from whatever had caused that alluring hint of rose. “No George. Certainly no Jorge.”
She pivoted on her heel and swept away from him.
He followed. “Why not?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “You don’t need a name, remember? That’s what you said, Fourth Commander.”
He knew what he had said, but for some strange reason, he was beginning to desire one. It probably had something to do with how she said his title, with venom that drove each word like a spear through his chest and made him feel lacking.
“Go,” she snapped when she reached the door and gripped the handle. She twisted it and yanked it open, then stepped over the threshold. As it swung closed behind her, she growled, “I don’t need someone to fight my battles.”
He let her go.
She needed space and he had pushed her too hard, had made her uncomfortable.
He had frightened her more than once too.
He ran over everything that had happened, every small detail, studying her words and behaviour, the shifts in her mood and her body language, cataloguing it all in an attempt to understand her and what she needed from him.
Apparently, she didn’t need someone to fight her battles.
A lie, but one that revealed something vital about her.
She didn’t like anyone belittling her strength. She had feared she had a weak mind, one he could manipulate, and she hated the way others treated her, as if she was fragile. She wanted to be viewed as strong, because she had lost sight of her strength. She believed it was gone, stolen from her by the dragon, but she was blinded by her pain and her memories. He had seen flashes of her strength tonight, revealed to him like lightning strikes, bright and blinding.
She was strong.
And he had foolishly thought to treat her as the others did, as if she was fragile and liable to break.
“Idiot,” he huffed and turned away from the door.
She didn’t need to be coddled, just as she certainly didn’t need him unable to control his temper when he was around her.
No. What she needed from him wasn’t violence. It was the opposite. She needed someone who made her feel safe, who was there for her without pressuring her, offering her a calm and unjudging place.
He needed to be careful with her, gentle, but not to the point where she felt as if he thought her fragile.
Damn, he wasn’t sure he could manage it, but he was going to try.
He focused on his apartments and teleported there without his usual display of power, disappearing from the London rooftop to reappear in the main living space of his quarters in the blink of an eye.
He turned his gaze toward
s Emelia and stopped himself.
He had no right to watch her, not tonight. She needed space and time to master herself again, to conquer her emotions and bring them back under control. Watching her now would be prying, violating the sanctuary she needed in order to find calm again and the strength to keep moving forwards.
Plus, she was probably angry with him.
He would rather not see her angry with him.
He strode towards the doors of his apartment, his mind on Emelia as he exited it and headed down through the building and out into the bustling white city, his feet carrying him to his superiors’ office on autopilot.
She was strong, incredibly so. Not only had she survived, but she was carrying on with her life, determined to pick up the pieces and put herself back together. He admired her for that. He had seen many mortals come apart, had witnessed despair and depression destroying them. He had seen angels go the same way.
She was a fighter, but she wasn’t strong enough to fight this battle. The wounds she bore were too fresh and raw, and he knew she hated herself for that. He had seen her battling with herself whenever she woke from a nightmare, desperate to hold herself together. He had seen her guilt whenever she saw one of the other huntresses, born of both the fact she had fared better than them and that Archangel were carrying on as if nothing had happened.
He had witnessed her despair after several meetings with the older male, how she held herself together until she reached her small apartment and how anger consumed her when she was alone, had her hurling objects and yelling words he couldn’t hear.
He didn’t need to hear her screams to know what tore them from her.
No army was heading to Hell to cut the dragons down.
Her own people wouldn’t do as she wanted, so he would.
He would be her sword and he would be her shield too.
He would protect her.
With his last breath if it came to it.
CHAPTER 7
Mundane didn’t cover the last two weeks. His superiors had berated him for his tardiness and handed him three thick files to study, all of them strong demons associated with the one he had killed in Shanghai.
Avenged by an Angel Page 6
