She’s not just any girl though, is she? Even thinking the words hurt. It was as if his body was in a battle against itself. His trained military mind wanted to end it, attack the prey and win. But another part of him, a piece he thought had died long ago, stood in his way. A part that he could only describe as his soul. He turned away from his reflection. Was he becoming weak? No, Azrael was never weak. He had been the leader of Heaven’s army. Picked by Lucifer himself. He was not weak. Azrael needed to finish it, end his torment and kill Lilliah. It had always been the plan.
“No.” He couldn’t even think about hurting her. He screamed, slamming his fist into the wall. How could he not know his own mind? How could a simple touch change everything he had believed for so long? Because that was when it had changed. Azrael fell into the leather seat behind him. His body was tense, ready for a fight. But he was fighting himself. The moment he had touched her, his body had come alive. It was a feeling he couldn’t explain but at the same time didn’t want to stop. The feeling started as a tingle in his arms and then quickly grew, shooting to his chest and all over his entire body until he was abuzz with energy. At the time he had needed to get away from her, to try and understand what was happening, but even as he walked away, his body detested it. In minutes he had gone from wanting to kill her to just wanting her. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was about Lilliah that drew him in, but he craved it. He would never admit it out loud but the feeling of her small hand in his was quickly becoming his favourite thing, even better then sex or fighting. He snorted at how pathetic it was. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Azrael took in a deep breath. He couldn’t hurt Lilliah, that much he did know. Nor did he want to. But he was still undecided on what his next step would be. With Lilliah safe under his roof, he didn’t have to make the decision right away.
Benedict burst into the rom. “Something’s wrong with Lilliah. She seemed . . . odd.”
“What do you mean, she seemed odd?” Azrael exhaled, exhausted from his mental debate. He had enough on his plate with Dena and the club; the last thing he needed was Benedict giving him useless information.
“They just seemed odd,” he repeated. “Rebecca looked afraid. No, petrified. They were all carrying bags. She said they were staying in the library, but I didn't believe her. Go and speak to Lilliah. Make sure they’re all okay.”
Azrael looked up at his friend, perplexed by his sudden caring nature.
“Well, you seem so worried. Why don't you go and see her?” he asked, not liking the thought of Benedict caring for Lilliah, or talking to Lilliah, or having anything to do with Lilliah at all.
“Why are you suddenly behaving like an adolescent?” Benedict shot back, studying Azrael closely. “There is a battle coming. You can’t lose yourself now.”
“I think you should remember who you’re talking to.” The threat was clear and hung in the air as Benedict stood taller.
“My apologies. I just . . .” He paused. “She's been through a lot recently. Do not forget she is still so young,” he stressed, his eyes scanning Azrael’s hard features.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Azrael said dismissively, standing. “There is still a plan. It’s just changing.”
“You can’t kill the girl, Azrael.” Benedict’s eyes widened.
“You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you. You’re either with me or against me. Choose now!” Azrael finished, a fire burning in his eyes as he stared across the room.
The sudden outburst wasn’t what had surprised Benedict; he had seen plenty of Azrael’s outbursts and fights. He was a warrior by nature, after all. It was the reason he had lost his temper that surprised him.
“I'm with you. But for me to follow you, I need to know where we're going. If the plan has changed, tell me,” he stressed. “But you’re right. She's not your problem. I will check on Lilliah and her friends.” He nodded once before turning to leave the room.
“Have you found anything on her mother?” Azrael asked just before Benedict could leave the room.
“Not yet. Whatever is shielding her is powerful. But I’ll find her,” he promised. He wanted to question Azrael’s decision to hold back on telling Benedict about his newly acquired feelings for Lilliah. But he would tell his friend in time.
“I’ll go and talk to Lilliah,” Azrael called just before Benedict left the room.
“Right,” he called back, not hiding the smile in his voice.
Azrael made sure Benedict had definitely left before he walked out of his office in search of Lilliah. He didn’t want to seem too eager. Knowing she was in his house wasn’t enough; he wanted to see her. During all his existence in Heaven and now on Earth, he had never felt anything like it. Hesitating slightly when he reached Lilliah's door, he drew in a breath, running a hand through his hair.
“Lilliah?” He reached up, lightly knocking on her door, frowning when he was met with silence. “Lilliah?” he asked again, this time a little louder, pushing the door so fast it creaked on its hinges.
It took a mere second for him to realise she wasn't there. Breathing heavily, Azrael ran as fast as he could to the library.
“Shit!” he shouted when the realisation dawned. She was gone. He would find Lilliah, he silently vowed, storming through the halls.
Chapter 7
“Are you sure we can stay here?” Lilliah asked, looking around the upmarket townhouse.
“Of course. My aunt and uncle are away on holiday. No one will know we’re here.” Rebecca yawned, walking through the house and turning on the kitchen light. “All my family are off in different countries having fun, and I'm here, running for my life. Isn't life great?” she joked. They had been travelling for hours, at first not sure of their destination. But after two trains and one bus, they had finally made it back to London and to Rebecca's aunt and uncle’s house.
“What time is it?” Lilliah asked, trying to stifle her own yawn.
“Two in the morning,” Sebastian answered, walking up beside her, his eyes heavy with exhaustion. “I need sleep. I can’t function without sleep,” he muttered, already walking up the stairs.
“Well, night then,” Rebecca shouted sarcastically.
His only response was raising a hand.
“I can’t sleep now,” said Rebecca. “We have too much to talk about. Come on, we’ll raid the cupboards and you can start from the beginning.”
Lilliah followed her into the kitchen, every bone in her body hurting and her head pounding. “My head is killing me. I need some tablets.” She sighed, leaning on the breakfast table, rubbing her temples.
“Tell me about it.” Rebecca opened a nearby cupboard. “Tablets—here you go.” She tossed them across the kitchen to Lilliah. “But I need something a little bit stronger.” She walked to the other side of the kitchen and kneeled to look in a cupboard. “The only alcohol they have is whiskey,” she said with raised eyebrows. “Aunt Gene and Uncle Brian go straight for the strong stuff. So, new plan. Whiskey, food, headache tablets, and then the story. Not necessarily in that order.” Rebecca smiled. “Get some glasses and let’s go.”
“It’s crazy. I really can’t believe it!” Rebecca said, taking another sip of her whiskey.
“I guess I should have known.” Lilliah shrugged, her head getting foggy from all the alcohol. “I mean, come on! There were so many things I still didn’t know about him that should have set off alarm bells but—but it didn’t.” The guilt had started to set in. She had been the one who had spent the most time with Azrael. She knew he had been keeping secrets, but she hadn’t done anything about it. Because of that, she had put her brother and her best friend in danger.
“You can’t blame yourself,” Rebecca replied, smiling, still slurping at her drink.
“I fancied him,” Lilliah said, feeling silly and ashamed, like some ten-year-old schoolgirl with a crush. “I really liked him. I thought he liked me too. Guess not.” She shook her head. Even saying the words out loud sounded pathetic.
“He had
us all fooled.” Rebecca nodded. “None of us knew.”
“What about you and Seb? Don't try and deny it. I’ve seen the two of you together.” Lilliah smiled, finally getting the chance to broach the subject. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about her brother and her best friend seeing each other, but it would be nice to actually know what was going on between them.
“About me and Seb?” Rebecca raised her shoulders in a small shrug, her features not giving anything away.
“Oh, please. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know you like him. I’m slowly coming round to the idea,” Lilliah assured her.
“I wish he'd come around to the idea.” Rebecca looked down, pulling and twirling the end of the rug with her fingers so she didn’t have to look at Lilliah. “I do like him,” she begrudgingly admitted. “He just doesn’t like me. Not like that anyway.” Her mouth curled into a quick, sad smile. “You know what I think? I’d actually prefer a guy that likes me but wants to kill me rather than a guy that just doesn’t give a shit.”
“Oh,” Lilliah muttered, not sure what else to say, so she decided to drop the subject. Now really wasn’t the time for a deep conversation. “Azrael doesn’t like me,” she said instead. “You don't kill someone that you like, Rebecca.” She reached over, grabbing a handful of crisps and shoving them in her mouth. “One thing about no boys,” she said, her mouth full, “we can get totally fat and not care.”
“True,” Rebecca agreed, grabbing a handful of junk food. “You can be the first obese angel in history.”
“Life couldn't get any more in the shit, so why not?” Lilliah smiled a little. “But in all seriousness, we have one more enemy. One more person we have to run from,” she reminded her friend, trying to think clearly through her slightly tipsy thoughts that, for some unexplained reason, kept drifting back to Azrael no matter how hard she tried not to think of him. “And somehow, apart from just simply surviving, we also have to find my mum.”
“Yeah. But that’s for tomorrow. We need clear heads for those kinds of thoughts.” Rebecca tipped her head back, emptying the last bit of whiskey in her mouth.
“Yeah,” Lilliah agreed. “We have to keep moving, though. Azrael and Benedict can track us. They probably won’t notice that we're gone until tomorrow morning though. So we have tonight.”
“We have this morning,” Rebecca corrected, looking at her phone. “It’s half past three in the morning.”
“We have time. They won’t realise we're gone until, like, eight. But we really need to sleep. Which room am I in?” she asked, stretching.
“Up the stairs, room on your left. We're sharing, so don't hog the whole bed. I’m going to clean up down here, and I’ll be right up.”
Grabbing her bag from where she had dropped it earlier, Lilliah slowly made her way up the stairs. The whiskey suddenly hit her harder than she’d expected.
“Wow, I cannot handle my drink,” she mumbled, falling into the bedroom door. In her drunken haze, she didn’t notice that the room was already dimly lit by a small light in the far corner. She also didn’t notice the man dressed in black standing in the corner until he spoke.
“Wow. The daughter of Michael, standing in this very room. I should be honoured.”
Swirling around so fast she nearly lost her balance, Lilliah stared into the cold, black eyes of a stranger.
A scream began to form in her throat, but before it could escape, he had made it across the room and crushed a rough hand over her mouth.
“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned, the faint smell of cigarettes fanning her face as he spoke.
Getting a good look at her attacker for the first time, she noticed that he wasn’t much taller than her. His hair was shaggy and long, with an unwashed look that made her skin crawl.
“Make a noise and I’ll kill your little friend downstairs.”
Lilliah heard his faint American accent for the first time. His lips snarled into a smile. She didn’t make a sound as he slowly lifted his hand from her mouth.
“Good. Now come on.” He grabbed her upper arm and dragged her out of the room and down the stairs.
The first thing she noticed was Rebecca on the floor in the hall, her hands tied behind her back, her mouth gagged, and her tear-streaked face looking up.
“Rebecca,” she whispered helplessly, trying to move towards her friend, but his grip held her in place. “What have you done to her, you bastard?” she hissed through gritted teeth as she tried to pull her arm free.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he snarled, pushing her to the floor.
She winced in pain. The only other sound was the muffled noise Rebecca was making as she was furiously trying to shuffle towards Lilliah on the floor.
“Jesus, Luke! Be careful with her! You know our orders,” a female voice hissed from the corner, making Lilliah aware that there was another person in the room.
“Yeah. They said don’t kill her.” He smirked at the petite English woman who had walked into Lilliah’s view. The guy, Luke, had to be in his mid to late twenties, she guessed. But the woman, although she looked more like a ten-year-old from behind, was at least thirty-five, with hard, pointy features.
“Don't be a prick,” she sneered back, turning to look at Lilliah. “Yeah, this is definitely her.” She breathed in deep. “Can you feel it? Her blood?” she asked, still looking at Lilliah, not smiling but not particularly frowning either.
“Oh, I feel something all right.” He laughed, grabbing his crotch. “Thinking of all the things I could do to her.”
“Luke.” The woman scowled.
“Calm down.” He shrugged, digging in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, completely ignoring Rebecca. “Let’s get going,” he mumbled, putting one in his mouth.
“No,” the woman said simply. “You stay here with these two. I need to make a call. Put something in her mouth,” she ordered, already going out of the room.
“You've got to be shitting me,” the guy hissed, following her into the kitchen, leaving Lilliah and Rebecca alone, with Lilliah ungagged.
“Are you okay?” she whispered, finally getting a really good look at Rebecca, who simply shook her head no. “Where’s Seb?” Lilliah tried to move closer, not wanting them to hear her. Rebecca shrugged her shoulders and looked up the stairs. They probably didn’t realise he was up there.
Lilliah let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, thankful that at least someone she cared about was safe, as temporary as it was. She wouldn’t shout for help. She knew there was no way he could take on both these guys.
“Who are they?” Her mind was racing. They weren’t vampires—that was very clear; they didn’t have that pale but interesting thing going on that all vampires seemed to have. Werewolves? A witch and warlock? They could be anything.
“This is the biggest load of crap.” The voice made Lilliah jump as Luke stalked back into the room, leaving a smoky trail behind him. “You’re hot, darling, but as soon as all that holy blood has left your pretty little veins, you'll be nothing.” He whispered the last words as he came to kneel in front of her. His face was close.
She wondered if a quick head-butt would actually do any damage. Probably not.
“I’ve heard about the stories, you know. About the great and powerful Azrael,” he mocked, wiggling his fingers and rolling his eyes. “But that’s all they are: stories. Because look who's got the girl?” He smirked almost triumphantly. “He’s spent centuries looking for you and got nowhere. It took us, what? An afternoon?” he boasted. “This, right here, proves us werewolves are top,” he finished, spreading his arms out wide, smiling, and making Lilliah shudder in disgust.
Out of nowhere, Sebastian jumped from the stairs and landed loudly on a surprised Luke. Lilliah watched, shocked, as the two wrestled on the ground. The gag around Rebecca's mouth muffled her screams. The two rolled around on the floor, both throwing punches and making it impossible to see who was winning.
“What the fuck!” Luke pushed S
ebastian off him with so much force that he went flying into the opposite wall.
“Sebastian!” Lilliah screamed frantically, looking at her unmoving brother. Rebecca sobbed next to her.
“What the fuck!” Luke repeated, still lying on the floor. With all the energy she had, Lilliah kicked her legs as hard as she could, landing a hard kick to the top of Luke’s head, followed by another and another.
“Ow!” he screamed, turning and grabbing her legs. “You little bitch,” he hissed, pressing down on her thigh.
She cried out in pain as his grip slowly began crushing her bones. “Stop!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, unable to stop the tears from spilling out her eyes.
Rising to his knees, Luke pulled her closer, hitting her face with the back of his hand. She flew to the ground.
“What the hell’s going on?” The woman ran into the room, her eyes darting from Sebastian’s unconscious body on the floor to a sobbing Rebecca, and finally landing on Lilliah, who was crying out in pain. “Get off her.”
Luke released her almost immediately, allowing Lilliah to cradle her injured leg.
“We have orders!” the woman screamed.
“He came out of nowhere. And then she kicked me!” he said, pointing at Lilliah and sounding more like a ten-year-old boy. “How the hell did we not know a goddamned demon was upstairs?” They both turned to look at Sebastian, who still hadn’t moved.
“A demon? No, it’s not that time yet.” She shook her head but didn’t take her wide eyes off Sebastian, as if she wasn’t sure.
“Well, he's fucking something!”
“We need to get out of here,” the woman said quickly, changing the subject. “Put them in the car.”
“Fine. What do you want to do about him?” he nodded in Sebastian’s direction.
“Leave him.” She shrugged, once again leaving the room.
Well, at least I know who is in charge, Lilliah thought, still looking at the now empty doorway that the woman had walked through.
Ruined (The Seraphim Series Book 1) Page 8
