The Angel Trials- The Complete Series

by Michelle Madow

  “Nothing.” He smirked. “Just that you have a weakness for strong men in need of your help.”

  “I fell for you, and you never needed my help,” I pointed out.

  He cut a piece of his steak, chewed, and swallowed, his eyes distant the entire time. “I needed your help in ways you didn’t realize,” he said. “But go on. How did you help the First Prophet?”

  I wanted to ask Thomas what help he’d needed from me, but there was too much at stake to get distracted right now. I’d come back to it later. For now, I had to get back to convincing him not to kill Noah.

  “I took him to the Devereux mansion and paid for Amber to do a tracking spell to find another demon,” I said. “The closest one she could locate was in San Francisco. Noah didn’t know how to get there, so I offered to take him.”

  “Flint was okay with that?” Thomas asked.

  “Flint’s my brother, not my keeper.” I rolled my eyes. “And the Montgomerys don’t have any enemies in California. And I definitely lied and told him I was going up there to see a friend. Which wasn’t a total lie, because I did stop by to see that friend. Just not until after helping Noah kill the demon.”

  Despite everything, amusement flickered across Thomas’s face. “All right,” he said. “So, you helped the First Prophet kill one demon. How’d it get from that to you becoming his partner for the rest of his hunt?”

  “I couldn’t just leave him on his own,” I said. “He had no money, no car, no ID—when I said he had nothing, I meant it. He’d lived his whole life in the wilderness of the Vale. There was no record of his entire existence. He needed a leg up. So when we got back to LA I connected him with someone who got him a fake ID, and I had enough cash laying around to buy him a motel room for a week. It was no Ritz-Carlton, but it was better than sleeping on the streets.”

  “He’s the First Prophet.” Thomas stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Not a stray dog.”

  “He’s a good hearted shifter who was in a bad situation, on a mission to join a noble cause.” I raised my chin, determined for Thomas to understand. “I wish I could have gotten him something nicer than that motel, but Flint checks my credit card bill each month, so I had to use cash. Luckily, it didn’t end up being an issue for much longer,” I continued. “Because the next demon we hunted down was in San Diego, and that one didn’t go nearly as smoothly as the first. Long story short—Noah ended up saving my life.”

  “Ah,” Thomas said. “The good old shifter life debt.”

  “Yep,” I said. “By saving my life, Noah made himself an ally of the Montgomery pack. So I brought him back to the Montgomery compound.”

  “Just like that?” Thomas’s eyes bugged out, apparently thinking I was both crazy and stupid.

  “He saved my life,” I said. “I trusted him.”

  “You trust too easily,” he replied. “I know he saved your life, but what if everything else he said was a lie? What if he was never given the quest to kill ten demons? What if he stole the quest—and the heavenly weapon he’s using to kill the demons—from someone else in an attempt to get to Avalon and take it down from the inside?”

  I blinked, needing a moment to take in what he’d said. “That’s one hell of a conspiracy theory,” I finally said. “Not only is it ridiculously far-fetched, but it’s also completely wrong.”

  “It’s not far-fetched, given that this is the First Prophet of the Vale we’re talking about,” Thomas said. “You should have been more careful.”

  “When I asked Flint if Noah could stay in the pool house, Flint said the same exact thing,” I said. “Which was why he only let Noah stay there after Noah took a truth potion to confirm his story. So he did, and that was when it came out about his being the First Prophet. We were all shocked, to say the least. But the most shocking of all was that Flint agreed to let him stay with us until finishing his hunt.”

  “Of course he did.” Thomas didn’t look shocked in the slightest. “You know how your brother thinks. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

  “Noah isn’t our enemy.” I was determined to have Thomas understand this by the time this meal was over. If he didn’t… well, I didn’t know how I could help Noah if Thomas decided he wasn’t to be trusted.

  Thomas was more powerful than the two of us combined.

  “Maybe ‘enemy’ is too harsh of a term,” he said. “But the First Prophet is a wild card. Flint wanted him at the Montgomery complex so he could know what he was up to at all times.”

  “Maybe,” I said, since he was right—that sounded just like my brother. “But you should have heard Noah when he told us about everything that happened at the Vale. He was deceived more than anyone. Now he’s determined to join the Earth Angel’s army and clean up the mess he unintentionally created when that Hell Gate opened. Making this right means everything to him.”

  “Or so he said…” Thomas mused.

  “He took truth potion,” I reminded him. “He couldn’t have lied if he’d wanted to.”

  “He’s a strong supernatural,” Thomas said. “You know how truth potion works. If a supernatural has stronger magic than the witch who created the potion, they can resist it.”

  “We gave him truth potion brewed by Amber,” I said. “The only supernaturals who would be able to resist that would be the original vampires, and maybe a few alpha pack leaders.”

  “And maybe the First Prophet of the Vale,” Thomas said with a smirk.

  “Ugh.” I cut into my steak to get out my frustration. All this talking was making my food get cold. “Noah can be trusted. But of course it would kill you to just trust my instincts about him, wouldn’t it? Even though he saved my life?”

  “I’m grateful to him for saving your life—don’t get me wrong on that.” Thomas leaned back in his chair—I could tell by that irritatingly smug look on his face that what I said no longer mattered. He’d already made up his mind on what he was going to do next. “But I’ll only believe his story if he drinks truth potion brewed by a witch from the Haven and tells it to me himself.”

  19

  Raven

  Thomas was about to send Noah in, and I had no idea what to say to him first. Because what Thomas had told me—about Noah being responsible for opening the Hell Gate—couldn’t be true.

  But why would he make something like that up? And Noah was super secretive…

  Noah walked through the door, and the moment our eyes met, my doubts about him vanished. He looked at me with so much love that I knew as long as he was by my side, I’d be protected. Every bone in my body screamed at me to trust him.

  Still, I needed to ask about what Thomas had said. Just to hear him deny it himself.

  I also had to tell him all about Princess Ana. Because that recording Thomas showed me of me pretending to be the vampire princess had seriously freaked me out.

  But before I had a chance to do any of this, Noah shut the door behind him, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me. This kiss was more intense than the one when I’d first woken up, and it affirmed what that one had already showed me—that despite what Noah had told me back in New Orleans, my feelings for him were reciprocated.

  My body filled with warmth as we kissed, and I wanted to pull him over to the couch and keep going.

  I would have, if there wasn’t so much we needed to discuss. But surprisingly, I wasn’t the one who pulled away first—he was.

  “Raven.” Noah cupped my face with his hands, as if making sure I was really there and not just a figment of his imagination. “I lied to you back in New Orleans.”

  “I figured as much.” I chuckled and leaned forward to kiss him again, but he stopped me. “What?” My stomach dropped—the look in his eyes was intense.

  “We imprinted on each other,” he said suddenly. “Back at that bar in New Orleans, when I kissed you for the first time.”

  “What?” I shook my head and leaned back, taking his hands in mine. I’d heard him, but what he’d just said… “That’s
impossible,” I continued, although it didn’t feel impossible—it felt right. It made sense, even though it also didn’t. “You and Sage told me that shifters can only imprint on other shifters. Unless…”

  “Unless what?” he asked.

  “You’re not saying I’m a shifter?” I asked. “Are you?”

  “No.” He laughed, amusement temporarily taking over the intensity in his gaze. “You’re definitely not a shifter.”

  “Then what am I?” It was a question that had been eating at me for days. As far as I was aware, I was human. But then why were demons trying to abduct me? It didn’t make any sense.

  “You’re human,” he said. “Shifters have the best sense of smell of any supernatural. If you were something other than human, I’d smell it.”

  “So how did we imprint on each other?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “This has never happened before.”

  “Great.” I huffed and rolled my eyes, attempting to make light of the situation. “Not only are demons hunting me for unknown reasons, but I’m also the first human to ever imprint on a shifter. Just when I think things can’t get any crazier, they do.”

  “Technically, I think I imprinted on you,” he said. “And something about you allowed you to reciprocate. But yeah, pretty much.”

  He pulled me to him again, and we kissed for a few more blissful seconds. But as much as I wanted to do nothing but kiss Noah and forget about everything going on around us, I had questions. A lot of them.

  I’d start with the ones that had to do with the imprint.

  “Why did you lie to me back in New Orleans?” I stared up at him, my arms still wrapped around his neck. “Why pretend the imprinting didn’t happen?”

  He paused for a moment, his jaw clenched. “You know about the imprinting and mating process, right?” he asked, his eyes searching mine. “Sage told you?”

  “She did.” I nodded, thinking about the first one-on-one conversation I’d ever had with Sage, back in her plush, pink room in the Montgomery compound. It hadn’t been long since then, but it felt like forever ago. “Shifters can imprint on multiple people, but they eventually choose one to mate with. Once they mate, that bond lasts forever.”

  “It never goes away.” His eyes gleamed with intensity. “Even after death.”

  “Okay.” I glanced down and shifted uncomfortably. “What does this have to do with you not telling me we imprinted on each other until now?”

  “Because imprinting and mating is a curse as much as it’s a gift,” he said sharply. “Shifters either choose a mate, or never find true love. And that mating bond lasts for life. Once one mate dies, the other will never find love again. That’s the way it’s always been for us. But for you it’s different. If you fall in love with someone and he dies, you’ll eventually move on and fall in love again. But not if that person is me.”

  “Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself?” I asked, forcing a small smile. “We’re young. We have the rest of our lives left to live.”

  “We’re in a time of war,” he reminded me. “Or did you already forget how close I came to dying the other day? How close you came to dying?”

  I lowered my eyes and shook my head, since no, obviously I hadn’t forgotten.

  I just didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to live life terrified that each moment might be my last.

  “I’m going to Avalon to fight in this war—to defeat the demons,” he continued. “There’s no saying what will happen to me. I’m a skilled fighter, but I’m not indestructible. If we let this progress between us, and if we become mates, I could be cursing you to a life without love. I don’t want to do that to you. I won’t do that to you.”

  His words felt like knives in my heart, and I focused on breathing steadily to calm the emotions raging through my body. It didn’t work. “So… you don’t want to give us a chance?” My voice shook—from either pain or anger. Maybe both. “You don’t want to see where this connection between us can go?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to.” He pinched his forehead together and breathed out in frustration. “I want to more than you could ever imagine.” He dropped his hand back down, his eyes hardening. “But I can’t. If anything happens to me, I want you to be happy, Raven. That won’t happen if we become mates.”

  “If you truly believe that, why tell me at all?” I backed away from him, anger running through my veins like fire. “Why not keep lying to me, like you did in New Orleans?”

  “That’s what I wanted to do.” He closed the distance between us and took my hands in his, squeezing them tightly and not letting them go. “But you nearly died in that alley back in Nashville. For a while I thought you were going to die. Thinking that you were going to die without knowing about our imprint, about how much I care about you—well, it just about killed me inside. I had to tell you. Even though we can’t take this any farther, I needed you to know.”

  I was silent for a few seconds as I took it all in—and it was a lot to take in.

  Maybe to him it sounded noble. But to me, it just sounded selfish.

  “What about what I want?” I glared up at him, determined not to back down. “You keep talking about what you want and what would make you feel best. What if I don’t agree? What if I want to give us a chance, no matter what might happen if we do?”

  “That’s just the imprint bond talking.” He let go of my hands, and the space between us literally hurt. “Once it goes away, you’ll start thinking clearly again.”

  “How can it just ‘go away?’” I couldn’t believe he was saying all of this. “Our souls are connected. I can feel it. I can feel your pain, your frustration, and your worry as intensely as if it were my own. That isn’t the kind of thing that just ‘goes away.’”

  “It actually is,” he said. “The imprint bond will disappear if I either mate with someone else or die.”

  Emptiness hit my chest at his words. “Both of those situations would devastate me,” I said. Obviously death would be the worst, but if he imprinted on someone else… I couldn’t bear to think about how badly that would hurt.

  “You’d get over it.” He spoke with such callousness that it shook me to the core.

  “No.” I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think I would. The imprint bond is intense—I’ve never felt anything like it before. I don’t think any human connection could ever compare.”

  “For your sake, I hope it can,” he said.

  Was this some kind of cruel joke? He was so determined to throw the imprint between us away—so determined to not give us a chance.

  But I didn’t have to sit back and accept it. I’d manifested my desires onto him before, and it had worked. Now, my desire to convince him to give us a chance was stronger than ever. Maybe I could manifest him into seeing things the way I did. It couldn’t hurt to try.

  And so, I reached for one of his hands and focused on the connection between us. Give us a chance, I thought, sending my desire his way. See what might develop between us if we let it.

  He dropped his hand so quickly that you’d have thought my touch was burning him. “Stop that,” he said.

  “Stop what?” I smiled innocently, since there was no way he could know what I was trying to do.

  “You’re tapping into the imprint bond to try influencing me,” he said. “I don’t know how you knew to do that—only shifters know about the power of the imprint and mate bonds—but stop.”

  “I didn’t know how to do it,” I said. “I was just practicing manifestation.”

  “Manifestation?” He said it like he’d never heard the word before.

  “Just something my mom taught me.” I shrugged. “The ability to will your wishes and desires to become reality. I’d always thought it was silly. But then I tried using it back when the rougarou captured us, and it worked. So I’ve been using it since.”

  He stared at me for a few seconds, as if waiting for me to add in a punch line. Then he laughed.

 
“What?” I crossed my arms and glared at him.

  “Manifestation doesn’t exist,” he said once he got ahold of himself. “But when imprinted shifters are near each other, they can send emotions and desires to each other if they focus on it. I did it to you back in the alley. When I told you to run.”

  “I remember,” I said. “I can’t believe you thought I’d leave you there.”

  “Tapping into the imprint bond is more than just communicating what you want,” he said. “The imprint bond connects our souls. When you tap into the imprint bond, you’re literally nudging my soul to want what yours wants. To feel what you feel.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Because even though I knew you wanted me to run from that alley, there wasn’t a single second that I actually wanted to do it.”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “But you’ve always been stubborn. I’m not surprised you resisted.”

  “It’s a good thing I did,” I said.

  “It is,” he agreed, which shocked me, since Noah rarely admitted he was wrong. He was sort of like me that way. “But unless it’s an emergency, don’t use the imprint bond to influence my decisions. It’s not respectful.”

  “Fine,” I said, even though I felt far from it. “I’ll just pretend the imprint bond doesn’t exist.” I stepped away from him, as if that would be enough to make the connection between us disappear. "That’s what you want, right? For us to never have imprinted on each other at all?”

  “Don’t turn this into something it’s not,” he said. “All I want is to not hurt you. I just wish you could believe me and trust that I want what’s best for you.”

  “After what Thomas told me earlier, I probably shouldn’t trust you at all,” I muttered.

  Alarm flashed in Noah’s eyes—he was so panicked that he looked like he stopped breathing for a second. “What did he tell you?” he asked.

  “A lot of things.” I leveled my gaze with his, glad that I was back in control of this conversation. “Mainly that you’re also known as the First Prophet of the Vale, and that I’m also known as Princess Ana, a vampire from the Seventh Kingdom.”