He stiffened beneath her, hands grasping her upper arms, and pushed her backwards. She was going to ask what was wrong but the way he stared at the closed bedroom door held her tongue. She listened, straining to hear what he had, if anything at all.
Marcus lifted her off him and rose from the bed, his back to her. He stood there, stock still and never once taking his eyes off the door. Had he heard something? It was probably just Taylor and Einar.
The sense of danger drifted away at that thought and she swept her gaze up Marcus, lingering a moment on his backside and the material that loosely covered it before continuing to the dimples above his bottom and finally following the strong line of his back up to his shoulder blades.
Her gaze tracked the grey-blue swirls of the wings marked on his skin.
A curse.
Someone had wanted to seal his power and he wasn’t sure why.
Did it have something to do with her, so they could take her from him? She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay with him.
She stepped down from the bed and slipped her hand into his. He looked down at her, held his finger to his lips, and then nodded towards the chair in the corner of the pale green room. His armour and her clothes covered it. She nodded, let go of his hand, and went to them. As she reached the chair, Marcus’s armour disappeared. She turned to look over her shoulder at him in time to see it materialising on his body. Was it the same power he had used to create the handkerchief for her? It certainly beat the hell out of having to manually dress.
Amelia hurried into her underwear, her pale blue summer dress, and her shoes, and returned to him. He opened the bedroom door and peered out into the hall. They were on the top floor of the building and there was no noise coming from below. Had he heard something? Did angels have hearing beyond human?
He took hold of her hand and she followed him down the stairs, their footsteps quiet on the wooden treads. When they reached the next floor, he led her into the drawing room. Taylor and Einar were standing in the middle of the dark red room, both dressed head to toe in black, and she almost said that she had known it was just them and nothing to worry about, but then Einar spoke.
“Something is wrong.”
Taylor looked worried too. She stared at the windows and the fading night beyond. It was earlier than Amelia had thought. The sun hadn’t risen yet and the world outside was bathed in hues of grey, blending everything together in the strange pre-dawn light.
“What’s happening?” Marcus said.
Einar shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“I am.” Taylor frowned and then stalked past them, heading out of the door and down the stairs at a quick pace.
Both men looked at each other and then Einar hurried after Taylor. Marcus drew Amelia closer to him and they followed his friend down the rectangular staircase to the lobby. It was dark without the lights on but Taylor took care of that by yanking the front door open.
An angel stood in the middle of the empty road in front of the building, his long flame red hair falling down around his shoulders and his crimson wings tucked against his back. The long flight feathers grazed the greaves of his obsidian armour.
Was this an angel of death?
“Wait!” Einar said and Taylor was out of the door, storming down the steps towards the angel. Einar raced after her.
Marcus was more cautious. He slowly walked out onto the porch with Amelia and stopped there. She wasn’t sure why either man was making a fuss. It was an angel. One of them.
The red-haired angel spread his wings and her eyes slowly widened as the colour began to drain from their tops, revealing black feathers beneath. She followed the crimson as it flowed down and then took a step back when she reached the bottom of his wings. The red dripped from them like blood, creating patches on the tarmac beneath him. Her eyes widened further as the black feathers began to slide off, falling in clumps into the pool of blood surrounding him, revealing leathery wings beneath. A grin slowly widened the angel’s mouth, turning his handsome face cruel and dark.
His eyes burned vivid red, flashing brightly. The wicked edge to his smile reminded her of those creatures Marcus had fought but this man still looked human, or at least like some sort of vicious angel. He didn’t have black skin or red teeth.
That soon changed.
Marcus dragged her close to him, his arm tight around her, as the man’s skin darkened and he grew taller, his body filling out until his breadth was the same as Einar and Marcus standing shoulder to shoulder.
Taylor didn’t stop at the sight of him.
She didn’t even slow when two more angels with red wings and black armour appeared, ascending out of hellish cracks in the ground that burned orange and black like lava. The tarmac hardened again and they landed there, flanking the one who had turned into something sinister.
Taylor strode right up to the demonic angel at the front.
He towered over her, his red eyes locked on her in a predator’s stare, cruel and evil, and utterly shocked as Taylor leapt and landed a firm resounding slap on his cheek.
“Bastard,” Taylor shouted and went to hit the demon again, curling her fingers into a fist this time.
He held a hand up, halting her, and changed, transforming back into the rough handsome man that had first appeared but retaining his leathery bat-like wings. His irises darkened but there was still a trace of red to them. Marcus’s grip on Amelia didn’t loosen and she was glad of it.
“Taylor?” The man raised an eyebrow and ran a glance over her, and then looked past her. Amelia backed into Marcus when the man’s red-ringed eyes briefly settled on her.
Einar stepped forwards and drew a long steel blade out of thin air.
The man’s eyes shifted to him, unconcerned, and then back to Taylor. “You know them? You’re with them?”
Taylor shrugged.
“She’s with me,” Einar said and the man looked at him again and frowned.
“A fallen angel?”
Taylor walked back to Einar and looped her arm around the thick length of his. “He wasn’t always fallen.”
The man smiled but it was grim. He seemed even less pleased to know that Einar had once been an angel of Heaven like Marcus. He laughed derisively. “It makes sense now at least.”
“What does?” Taylor said and the man waved a hand at the two men behind him. They nodded and the ground around them bubbled, burning red and orange again, and they descended back into it. Back to Hell, Amelia presumed.
She was so busy staring at the tarmac as it cooled again that she jumped when Marcus moved with her towards the edge of the porch and placed his hand firmly on her arm, as though she needed to be held in place. She had no intention of going anywhere near this man if that was what he was worried about. She was fairly certain that he was one of those Hell’s angels that Einar and Taylor had mentioned last night. She just wasn’t sure how Taylor knew the man.
Marcus stared at the man, his expression one of confusion.
“Do you know him?” she said and he looked at her, his eyebrows high and eyes wide, as though she had startled him.
“No.” The conviction in his tone and the way he shook his head said that he definitely didn’t, but the uncertainty that crept back in as his gaze returned to the man left Amelia wondering if he did know the newcomer.
“I found out about you and Villandry and went to lay into him, and he starts spouting shit about not being with you anymore. So this is… unexpected… but V makes sense now.” The man shrugged, lifting his black leathery wings with it, and sighed. He rubbed his cheek and frowned. “You could have offered me a better greeting though.”
“I was with Villandry over a year ago.” The frustration in Taylor’s voice made it clear that she knew this man intimately. An ex? Was Taylor as bad as she was at picking out the good men amongst the bad? “Bugger me… have you always been this slow? Christ only knows how I put up with you for so long. I’ve been with Einar for months!”
The man growle
d, stepped up to Taylor, and towered over her. The skin around his eyes darkened and they burned bright red, fixed intently on the woman in front of him.
“Word doesn’t exactly travel swiftly to the lower reaches of Hell!”
“Back off.” Einar stepped between them, pressed his sword to the man’s throat and forced him away from Taylor.
“What in Hell’s good name are you doing here anyway, Veiron?” Taylor touched Einar’s shoulder but he didn’t relent. He remained between Taylor and the man she had called Veiron, his sword at the ready.
Veiron’s crimson eyes shifted coldly to Amelia. “I have come to stop her from dying.”
“What the hell?” Marcus stole the words right out of Amelia’s mouth. “What do you mean, stop her from dying?”
Veiron regarded him and then looked back at her, his eyes boring into hers in a way that made her feel intensely vulnerable.
“I thought the meaning would be obvious.” Veiron shrugged easily again. “I have seen it in Hell. She dies. You’re there when it happens so you must have known about—”
“You knew?” Disgust rolled through Amelia, burning in her heart, and she broke free of Marcus’s grip and turned to face him.
His silver-blue eyes met hers and she couldn’t bring herself to look into them.
“How could you lie to me?” She stared at her feet and then ran into the house, needing space and air that she couldn’t find whilst standing so close to Marcus.
“Tetchy little thing, isn’t she?” Veiron said and she had half a mind to head back and imitate Taylor by hitting the demon as hard as she could. It wouldn’t get her anywhere, but it would certainly make her feel better and she doubted he would hit her in return.
He wanted to stop her from dying.
Marcus was going to be there when she died.
What the hell was going on?
Amelia hesitated in the entrance hall when she realised that she was trapped and Marcus would catch up with her, if he came after her at all. Hers were the only footsteps ringing out on the chequered marble floor as she paced it and she could hear him arguing with Veiron about what the man had seen. The way he was speaking made her want to believe that she was wrong about him and that this news really had come as a shock to him too, but the hurt in her heart was too great to ignore.
Instead of heading upstairs where she definitely wouldn’t be able to escape, she ran down a corridor next to the staircase. It led to a kitchen at the back of the house and a door to what looked like freedom to her. She tried the handle, silently praying it wouldn’t be locked. The door opened and she burst out into a small courtyard garden. It was chilly in the shade but it didn’t bother her as she paced the cream York stone patio, treading across the narrow space from one tall wooden fence to the other, trying to gather her scattered emotions and gain control over them again.
The silence was just starting to become soothing when another set of footsteps met hers.
“I didn’t know,” Marcus said but she refused to look at him.
Even if he hadn’t known that she would die, he still knew something and she wanted to know what that something was. She needed to know whether she was better off with Veiron, a demon, than she was with an angel.
“You knew something was going to happen to me though.” Amelia kept pacing back and forth across the small space, too agitated to remain still. The constant motion helped her think and stopped her from lashing out at Marcus. She could easily hit him right now. She could hit them both for how they had tied her in knots inside with only a few words and scared her more than the fight with the demonic angels on the rooftop had.
He was silent for a moment.
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing.” Amelia swept her hand sharply downwards through the air and drew in a deep shuddering breath as she came to a halt facing one of the wooden fences.
She had been fine when this had all been about protecting her. No one had mentioned death or anything like that. Just a little danger. Marcus had said things in a way that had made her feel as though he just had to keep her safe for a while and it would all blow over. Now she had a demonic angel telling her that it was his mission to keep her alive and that Marcus was going to be there when she died.
She wasn’t sure who she was supposed to believe. Why would a demonic angel want to protect her? Why would he know that Marcus was going to be there at her death?
Amelia met his gaze. Was he destined to fail in protecting her?
She turned away from him and dug her fingers into her hair, clutching her temples. She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want to die. She wanted all of this crazy shit to go away and wanted her life back.
“Amelia,” Marcus whispered and she listened to his footsteps as he crossed the courtyard, undoubtedly coming to her.
She tensed when he lightly placed his hands on her shoulders and closed her eyes. No matter how much she told herself not to take any comfort from him and to remain angry, his touch began to calm her and chase her fury away, until she wanted to lean back into him and feel his arms around her.
“It came as a shock to me too.” His low tone stirred warmth inside her, smoothing out the rough edges of her feelings as much as his touch.
She knew that. He had been genuinely surprised to hear what Veiron had said and had sounded horrified when confronting him. She should have stuck around to hear what the man had to say on the matter but she hadn’t been able to ignore her need to escape it all. The feeling had been building inside her since the alley attack and she had reached breaking point.
“Will you look at me?”
Amelia shook her head. She wasn’t strong enough to do such a thing. If she did that, her resolve would crumble completely and she would fall into his arms in search of the comfort she so badly needed. She wanted to hear him say that Veiron was wrong and that she wasn’t going to die, and he wasn’t going to fail her. They would get through this.
“Look at me.”
She went to shake her head again and the world spun and suddenly she was facing him. There was so much hurt and sorrow in his eyes that she had to clench her fists and pin them to her sides to stop herself from reaching up and touching his face to chase away his pain and reassure him.
He lowered himself so they were eye level with each other and then sighed and released her right shoulder. He swept the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear in a way that made her feel like a child, and brushed his thumb over her cheek. She was certainly playing the role of petulant child so she couldn’t be angry with him for treating her like one. Ashamed of herself, she straightened, took a deep breath and blew it out, expelling all of her anger and weakness with it.
“I swear to you, Amelia, I did not know. They did not tell me what they saw.” The sincerity in his look and his tone drove belief deep into her soul. He wasn’t lying to her. “I have tried and tried to make them tell me about what happens, but they wouldn’t.”
“But they did tell you about me and they sent you to protect me, didn’t they?”
“Yes.” He lowered his head and then met her gaze again. “But my duty is not why I am here with you now… and it is not why I was intimate with you.”
Amelia wanted to ask when his feelings for her had changed and altered his mission with their appearance. The affection in his silver-blue eyes and the tenderness in his touch as he stroked her cheek to calm her told her everything she needed to know about him. What had once been little more than duty to him was now a personal mission and he was confused because of it. Einar had said that Marcus was fiercely devoted to his duty and Heaven, and that love had changed many angels’ loyalties in the past. Was the loyalty inspired by his feelings for her now battling his loyalty to Heaven? The conflict in him and his eyes said that it was, and that he was as unsure of everything as she was.
She placed her hand over his, bringing it closer to her so he cupped her cheek, and leaned into his palm. It was warm against her face, solid and real, a comf
ort to her.
“Am I more than a mission to you, Marcus?” She slowly opened her eyes and found his, holding them so he could see that he meant something to her and would be honest in his answer.
He nodded and brought his other hand up so he held both of her cheeks. “So much more, Amelia.”
He drew her into his arms and she frowned at the cold feel of his armour against her face.
“Can we get away for a while?” she said so quietly that she was certain he wouldn’t hear her. “I need to escape this insanity and just be with you.”
“I would like nothing more.” Marcus hesitated and her hope faded. “I must speak with Veiron about what he has seen.”
Amelia didn’t want that to happen. She needed to leave, to find somewhere quiet where she could be alone with Marcus and pull herself together. Her courage was spent. The events of the past day combined with the knowledge that she was going to die had her head spinning and left her quaking. She couldn’t face Veiron yet, not when she feared that what he had said would come true if she saw him again.
Running away wasn’t the answer but it would give her the time she needed to find the strength to face everything that was happening and to face her fate.
“Is it set in stone?” she whispered and he looked confused. “The future… Marcus… is it set in stone?”
Marcus lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her hair. “No. If there is one thing I have learned in my years, and during this mission, it is that nothing is set in stone. The future can be changed, and the slightest thing can avert the greatest disaster.”
That was a small comfort at least.
“I don’t want to die.” Amelia buried her head against his chest armour and wished it wasn’t there creating a barrier between her and Marcus’s warm skin. She needed to feel him.
He brought one hand up and splayed his fingers through her hair, holding her gently against him as he sighed.
“I promise you, Amelia, with all of my heart, I shall not let you die.”
She smiled at the strength in those words and the gravelly edge to his voice that left her with no option but to believe in the promise he made and his conviction to keep it.
Her Guardian Angel Page 14
