Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  “They’re just knocking, looking around the property, making sure everything is in order. They’re not going in—which means they’re responding to the missing persons.” Frustration pushed through her shields in a ragged blast. “Can you teleport around the back of his house and quietly break a window? It’s a crap thing to do, but we’ve already screwed all the evidence, and it might get them all moving faster.”

  Michael would do anything she asked, but he wanted to know her reason. She’d hated tampering with that evidence. So why do this when it clearly upset her, and after she’d already looked through the home? “They cannot solve his murder.”

  “No. But maybe they’ll turn up whatever it was we missed—even if they don’t recognize it. Or maybe a person will come forward after hearing a news report. Maybe someone saw something. Anything.” Her jaw clenched. “I just want it all to be louder and faster, and more information coming in.”

  Because the longer it took, the more Savi and Colin suffered. That made perfect sense. And if she wanted them to hurry, Michael could do better than a broken window.

  He paused long enough to send another text, then teleported inside the house and opened the back door. He allowed some of Brandt’s blood to fall out of his cache and splatter over the tile. From outside, he heard the officers start around the side of the home, looking in windows—and farther distant, Andromeda’s strangled gasp.

  Back at her side, he found Andromeda holding her phone and laughing uncontrollably. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes.

  “‘BRB’? Did you really send that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I was.”

  That set her off again. He considered sending a smiley face, but decided to save it for a later time. She might need another reason to laugh soon.

  He might need to see her laugh soon, too.

  She quieted on a long sigh. “Do you think it’s Khavi?”

  “I think it’s possible, but unlikely.”

  “Why unlikely? She already made one deal with Lucifer when she handed over Nicholas and Ash to him. She considered their torture worth learning how to free you from the frozen field. She might be willing to trade Savi and Colin for something else.”

  “I believe she’s capable of it, if she feels that every other option has vanished.” Because Michael was capable of the same, and the dragon at her core was the same as his. “But there were other options besides torture. If she wanted to access Chaos, Irena would have given her the spear.”

  “Or she could have taken Colin’s and Savi’s blood. Pretty easily, too.”

  Acknowledging that irritated her, he saw. Andromeda wanted to think the worst of Khavi.

  Just as she wanted to think the worst of him.

  Both he and his friend deserved it. Michael would never argue against that. But for all of the sins that could be laid at their feet, Michael didn’t think this was one of them.

  “I also don’t believe she would assist Lucifer,” he said. “She wants to destroy him.”

  Not as badly as Michael did. But Khavi had wanted to remove the demon from his throne for millennia.

  “Maybe she has a twisted little plan to help him before betraying him.”

  “She does have a twisted plan. But to further it, she’s helping Anaria.”

  She frowned a little at that. “Anaria knew about Colin and Savi, too. And she has that power to compel people. Maybe she convinced demons to carry out this plan, and, while pretending to help her, Khavi brought them to Earth.”

  That was the scenario that Michael feared over any other. “Yes.”

  “What would you do if Khavi did?”

  “I would kill her,” he said.

  Khavi might have her reasons, and her plan might eventually destroy Lucifer. But if she opened a portal between Chaos and Earth, if she was responsible for Brandt’s death, then he would have no other choice.

  Andromeda didn’t appear surprised. Her gaze searched his face. “Like you had to execute Anaria.”

  “Yes.”

  He had once shared the pain of that with her. He’d given her his memories of the battlefield, of finding the human men that his sister had slaughtered. He’d shown her Anaria, unapologetic. He’d let Andromeda feel his despair, his grief.

  She would know that he didn’t want to experience that again. But he would, if it was necessary. And he would take the responsibility of executing Khavi himself.

  He hadn’t been able to bear doing the same to Anaria. So he’d grasped the first excuse that his friends offered, when Anaria’s husband requested that he be the one to carry out the execution order. But Zakril had hidden Anaria away instead—and thousands of years later, put every Guardian in danger when she’d been freed.

  At Michael’s side, Andromeda reached out and lightly touched his hand. A gentle squeeze followed, then she withdrew and looked down the street again.

  Feeling as if she’d squeezed her fist around his heart instead, Michael stared at her profile, the need to touch her burning in his hands.

  What had she just done? He hadn’t intended to take this step. He’d intended to leave this door closed.

  And he had no intention of falling in love.

  He already loved her. He had for some time. Just as he loved other Guardians and his friends—though he loved Andromeda most. He’d also known the emotion could become more, if he let it. If he opened that door. But after he’d hurt her in Hell, after the dissonance began killing him, he’d chosen not to. And she didn’t want his love anyway.

  Yet, with a gentle touch, she’d shoved him through, and he could feel himself falling. Not just love. In love. After eight thousand years of watching humans trip and stumble and jump headlong into it, Michael couldn’t mistake this feeling for anything else. Part agony, part panic. All joy.

  With only a few weeks left to savor it. But far better to have a few weeks to love her at the end of his life than only a few at the beginning of it.

  She glanced at him. Her eyebrows drew together, and she took a longer look. After a second, she said warily, “Why are you smiling at me like that?”

  “Because your very existence makes me smile, Andromeda Taylor.”

  And her snort made him laugh. She rolled her eyes, shook her head.

  “If this is part of your seduction technique, that kind of line is as old as you are. And— Look, they must have found the window.” She frowned. “Why are they mentioning blood?”

  “Because I left some of Brandt’s on the floor.”

  “What?”

  “To hurry their response.”

  “Oh, my God.” She groaned a little, rocking back and forth on the bench, then stared at the house again. “I know it’s for a good cause. And you did the right thing. But I’m going to Hell for this, I just know it.”

  “I doubt for this. When we go to see Khavi, however, yes.”

  She laughed up at him, but her smile slowly faded into a thoughtful frown. “Maybe I am, though. I’ve killed people.”

  “I know.” He’d read the accounts not long after he’d met her. “Robert James Nickell and Terrence William Stone. Both in the line of duty. Once defending your partner. Once defending your own life.”

  “Yeah, but—I broke the Rules.”

  “The Rules don’t apply to humans. Intentions matter. Circumstances matter.”

  “You know that for certain?”

  “Yes. Gabriel told me.”

  “The archangel?”

  “Yes.”

  Though he could see her curiosity, she didn’t ask more. Knowing that the angels existed created too much turmoil within her. She always stepped away to examine and consider—and never liked the conclusions she reached.

  She retreated to a topic more comfortable for her: getting away from him. “I don’t have to wait until you agree to let me Fall. If I broke the Rules, you’d have to transform me back to human.”

  “No. I could also make you Ascend to judgment. Or punish you.”

  She frowned. �
��With torture?”

  “Yes. I’ve never chosen that option before, but it is one.” Not truly. He couldn’t bear torturing her. “I decide the punishment as well. Perhaps it would not be so painful.”

  “What does that mean?” Sudden laughter lit her face. “You’d bend me over your knee and spank me?”

  The idea amused him, too—until the image formed in his mind. He could almost feel the stinging heat in his palm. Would she cry out, or clamp her teeth and bear it?

  She would bear it, he thought. But he wanted to know for certain. He wanted to know whether she’d shiver in anticipation when he slid his hand around the curve of her bottom to discover if the punishment had left her hot and slick. He wanted to know whether she’d moan and push back against him, urging a deeper touch. He wanted to feel the sweet clench of her orgasm around his fingers—or against his tongue and lips.

  Against his mouth, yes. He’d taste her. All that wetness, all that need. He’d lick it up. Feed from her desire while taking her higher and higher.

  “Michael?” Andromeda sat utterly still, holding his gaze. Her gun was in her hand, he realized. “What’s happening? Is there a threat?”

  Nothing that he’d noted in his continual monitoring. “Why?”

  “Your heart’s beating faster. It didn’t even do that when you killed the nosferatu earlier.”

  It was beating faster. He listened to it pound and had no doubt of its cause.

  He wanted her.

  Incredible. For millennia, he’d had no interest in sex. And many years before that, when he had been interested, he’d craved the act rather than the people he’d been with.

  But now he craved Andromeda—and no longer just for her pleasure. Michael craved her for his own. Desire pulled at him, deeper than the hunger that always gnawed at the back of his mind, a physical ache sweeter and sharper than the pain eating away at his body. Hot and tight, his need gathered in his groin, his chest, his tongue. The impulse to taste, to take.

  To claim her as his.

  She wouldn’t be. Even if he had her in bed, Andromeda would never give herself over to him that fully. But he could be hers.

  He was hers, even without sex. But persuading her would be just as enjoyable.

  Michael waited until her gaze dropped to his mouth. “I was imagining your taste.”

  Her breath caught. Lips parting, she stared at him. Her heart quickened to an answering beat.

  And it still pounded even though she shook her head, rejecting him. “Didn’t you have enough of a taste in Hell?”

  Slick sweat and coppery blood. The soft silk of her skin, the heat of her mouth. He’d only known cold logic and a need to possess and protect . . . yet it had been a pleasure then, too. He should have dropped to his knees and tasted her fully. He should drop to his knees now.

  “I could never have enough,” he said softly.

  “Then you could definitely come up with a punishment worse than any I could imagine. Just tie me to your bed for a year.”

  If she broke the Rules, he would consider it. But Michael would not last a year—and he would never have enough of her. He would never have enough of her in a hundred thousand years, let alone a few weeks.

  Tearing his gaze from hers, he clenched his jaw. Battled the rage of not enough, not enough.

  This would be enough. He just had to accept it.

  And there was still more to learn about her. It didn’t have to be sex. That would please him, but so did everything else he knew of her.

  Now, he would like to know why her expression had clouded. Not at him. Her gaze had briefly unfocused, as if in memory.

  Her eyes sharpened again when he said, “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Her gun vanished into her hammerspace, replaced by a pack of cigarettes. Then she shook her head, and that vanished, too. “Just one of those stupid things.”

  Nothing she did was stupid. Michael waited.

  She exhaled, glanced up at him. “It just hits every once in a while. This time, being tied up in bed for a year as punishment.”

  An ache started in his chest. She’d already been in bed longer than a year. “You think of the time you lost?”

  That he’d stolen from her by holding on too tightly.

  “No. That doesn’t even feel real. I thought of Jason.” She looked down the street, gaze unfocused again. “I tied him up once. When I was ten or eleven. I had busy fingers, and shredded everything. Napkins, notebook paper, shirt hems. Just compulsively. Not even noticing what I was doing. It got really bad for a while, so my dad gave me some little ropes and strings to carry around and taught me to tie knots. And of course I thought it would be really funny if I tied Jason to the bed and left him there until Mom got home.”

  As many brothers and sisters had, for as long as he’d lived. If a rope could have held them, he and Anaria would have probably done the same.

  But he’d heard many other stories that began this way as well. “Was he hurt?”

  She glanced at him in surprise. “No. It was mean, though. Even at the time, as funny as I thought it was, I knew it was mean. But when I mentioned being punished, I had that flash, remembering.” Her voice thickened. “And I thought that I was paying for it now, because he’s really tied to that bed.”

  Eyes glistening, she looked away. Michael caught her chin, brought her gaze back to his before letting her go. “You know it is not.”

  “I know.” Her breath shuddered. “I know. And it would be stupid. Why make him pay for what I did, right?”

  “Why think of it as a punishment at all?” Carelessness and neglect caused most accidents. If she’d been responsible, he’d have agreed that Andromeda should blame herself. But she couldn’t be blamed for a hole in the road and whatever had led Jason to ride into it.

  But even if she had been at fault, the result was not a punishment—it was just what happened when a human head hit pavement too hard.

  She knew that. And Michael knew that she couldn’t accept it, not while also believing there were angels who could heal her brother. So Jason’s continued illness became inexcusable cruelty, instead.

  “Should I think of it as a reward, then? I mean, there’s got to be some fucking reason they don’t—” Clamping her mouth shut, she closed her eyes, dropped her head into her hands. “Shit. I can’t go there again. Let’s talk about me Falling. About getting my life back to normal.”

  Even if she became human again, her life would never be what it was. “Do you think it will be normal?”

  “I’ll do anything to find out.”

  Would she? “If it guaranteed a Fall, would you break the Rules?”

  She frowned. After a long second, she sighed and admitted, “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “You believe in them.” Not just followed them because she had to.

  “They’re basically what I believed already: Don’t try to hurt anyone, or infringe on their free will if they’re not hurting anyone else, or kill anyone. And if you can’t help it, try not to be an asshole about it.” She shrugged. “I’d probably do what Hugh did, though—stop a human from killing someone else. It would be worth losing the superpowers for.”

  “Yes. I’ve done it myself.”

  “And Fell?”

  “Yes. Several times. I knew I could eventually become a Guardian again. So I continued fighting demons until I did.” And he’d thought—hoped—that Hugh might eventually, too. But his friend valued his own free will more than he wanted to be a Guardian.

  “Who was the Doyen then? Have you had to Fall for other reasons?”

  “Khavi was the Doyen. And I killed a man.”

  Her eyes widened. “Killed? Murdered?”

  “You would call it murder, I think. He’d killed others. He would again. So I stopped him.” He studied her face. It had been a different time, and different man-made rules governed the world—Michael himself had changed since then—but she still struggled with the knowledge of what he’d done. “Perhaps I should have left him to
human laws.”

  “I’d say.” Her brows drew together, as if another thought occurred to her. “Were there any laws? How long ago was this?”

  “There were laws. It was only three thousand years ago. I haven’t Fallen since.”

  After Khavi had disappeared, he’d dared not. And after rebuilding the corps, he hadn’t wanted to leave the new Guardians on their own.

  Now there were Guardians whom he trusted to carry on. But even if he hadn’t, they would soon be on their own anyway. He had little choice.

  “Would you kill a human now?”

  “No.”

  “What about to save a life? Even I don’t think that’s necessarily vigilante justice or murder. That’s justifiable.”

  According to her personal rules. “Any being with a Guardian’s power has no excuse to kill a human. We could incapacitate one with a flick of our fingers.”

  Her lips pursed as she considered that. “I guess that’s true. And either way, we’d still be breaking the Rules.”

  “Yes. So if a life isn’t in immediate danger, I would probably use Lilith’s methods to stop someone.” Point the police toward a murderer, even if the evidence that Michael gave was fake.

  “God. That’s what I’m doing now. I wonder what’s worse—falsifying evidence, or that it’s Lilith’s method?”

  “That it’s Lilith’s method.”

  She laughed before settling back to study his face. “I thought you would always follow the Rules, no matter what.”

  “I did not even truly believe in them for many millennia. I followed them because I wanted to remain a Guardian. But it took longer for me to think of them as necessary.”

  “What did you think they were, then?”

  “I thought the angels were limiting us simply because they could.”

  She frowned. “Why would you think that? Aren’t they basically just laws making sure we don’t abuse our power, or so that we don’t become like Anaria and go around judging people worthy of living? Because the Rules don’t actually stop us. They just give consequences for crossing a line.”

  That was how she saw it—and how Michael did as well. But he hadn’t always. “Because the way we see the world often determines what we believe motivates others. And when I was young, power and control were almost all that I saw.”