Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  A thousand things. All terrifying. Taylor reached for the safest. “Teach me to fly?”

  “I’d have given you that anyway. But I can’t teach all you need to know in the space of a few days.”

  In other words, she still wouldn’t be ready to fly by the time Lucifer tried to open the portal. “I know. But the other thing I wanted would have taken a little longer—and we still have a lot to do before the world burns.”

  “What was it?”

  Forever. But Taylor only shook her head.

  Even though he’d declared himself hers, Michael had never spoken of the future. But the reason was obvious: He didn’t know there would be a future. He believed they’d defeat Lucifer, but Michael wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

  So she’d do the same. No plans or promises right now. Those could come after they stopped the sentinels, stopped Lucifer.

  And even though Taylor didn’t ask for what she wanted most, it all turned out okay, anyway. Within minutes, she was in his arms, the world spinning around her, and Michael her only anchor.

  A pretty damn good reward, for just having a bit of faith.

  * * *

  When Taylor’s brain stopped twirling cartwheels, Michael held her beneath a starlit sky, his hands at her waist and her feet dangling. His wings beat a rhythmic swath of darkness behind him. Cool ocean air filled her lungs.

  Steadying herself with her hands on his forearms, she looked down. They hovered about a hundred feet above the water. A long trail of moonlight reflected across the sea, where the surface appeared as smooth and silvery as mercury.

  Not a bad landing spot. “So when I crash, I don’t hurt myself as much?”

  “You won’t crash. We’re here because there’s very little wind.” With his back to the moon, harsh shadows darkened his features, but amusement lightened the harmony of his voice. “Form your wings.”

  She did, rolling her shoulders to adjust their weight. Oh, but she loved this. That wonderful, heavy sensation, the whisper of the breeze through her feathers. This part of her, so new and familiar, all at once—and suddenly making her so aware of every other sensation, too. The stretch of cotton across her breasts. The slight prickle of dark hair beneath her palms. The strong grip of his hands.

  Michael looked incredible with the moonlight carving shadows from every ridge of muscle. With a delicious flex of his biceps, he moved her farther from his chest—holding her only by her waist. “Now let go of me and beat your wings in time with mine. Find your balance.”

  Taylor tore her gaze from his arms and released him. The first downsweep of her wings almost toppled her over. She grabbed for his wrists again, steadying herself. And tried again.

  She watched his wings, the smooth easy sweep. It took a few minutes to catch his rhythm, and a few more to stop wobbling. The grip on her waist slowly loosened. Still no wobbling. Just the beating of her wings making her entire body feel light, then lighter, like a balloon rising out of his hands.

  He let her go, and she didn’t fall.

  Taylor hovered above the water, full of so many wild emotions she should have been bursting, then she looked down and—oh, my God—wobbled but steadied again.

  Laughing, she met Michael’s eyes. “Give me a sword. I’m ready.”

  “Lucifer is trembling on his throne.” With a grin, he flew in close. “I’m going to shove you off balance now. Keep the same beat, but reach forward with your wings to find your center again.”

  His palm flat against her chest, he gave a gentle push.

  Instantly, she began to fall. Taylor’s stomach swooped. Her heart jumped into her throat, pounding wildly. She swung her wings hard, hard again, too far and then slow and stiffening her wingtips the same way she would make paddles of her fingers underwater and finally steadying, back to that easy rhythm, hovering above the sea.

  She grinned. Her breath hadn’t settled, her heart still raced, but she’d found her balance again.

  Disappointment filled Michael’s sigh. “I hoped to catch you.”

  “What?”

  “I expected you to fall.”

  Wry amusement curved his mouth. So that hadn’t really been teaching her anything. He’d just wanted an excuse to save her. To hold her again.

  That was just fine with Taylor—though she had to laugh. “So I’m a quicker study than you realized.”

  “No. I know how quick you are. I’ve also taught thousands of novices, and not one could have pulled out of that fall.”

  “Whoo! So I’m the Chosen One.”

  “We will ask Khavi for a new prophecy.” Smile fading, he studied her with a thoughtful frown. “I should have realized—you already know much of this. We flew together for a year. The ability was drawn from my experience, but your body hasn’t forgotten. We just need to make you aware of how you are doing it.”

  Like amnesia. Still possessing a skill, even though she couldn’t remember learning it. “So you think I could dive now and be fine?”

  “No. Your reflexes might save you, but it’s more likely that you’d attempt to control the dive. And when you lost control, you’d panic and overcompensate.”

  “And crash.”

  “Yes.”

  So baby steps, then. “And I’ll still have to learn everything?”

  Michael nodded. “You’ll have stronger instincts, so you’ll learn more quickly, but you still need to be taught. And you need to practice until you no longer have to think about how to fly.”

  Until it was as natural as walking. All right. “So what now?”

  “Now”—still upright, he flew backward, his wings beating in huge sweeps—“come to me.”

  Only about twenty feet. Taylor hesitated, looking across the distance. Trying to push those instincts into flying forward. Gingerly, so that she wouldn’t lose her balance, she kicked a little, then swept her arms forward and back, like a breaststroke.

  And didn’t go anywhere. “I feel like I’m in a kiddie pool.”

  “You look like it, too.”

  She laughed. “Shut up.”

  “You don’t fly with your arms.” Michael’s were crossed over his broad chest. “They are for balance or for weapons. Your wings are for flying.”

  So she needed to stop swimming. “Okay.”

  “From a hovering position, it will feel like a dive to start, but you’ll flatten out, instead,” he said. “When flying forward, your body will almost always be horizontal, with your wings rowing through the air.”

  Like an eagle, instead of up and down. She dipped forward. Panic gripped her throat but her feathers were already spreading out, swinging back and pushing her through the air. Still unsteady. Not exactly an eagle. More like a turkey. Her arms jabbed out, trying to keep herself from overbalancing one way or the other. Lying out, going forward . . . forward with every flap of her wings.

  In Michael’s general direction. Not to him. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to attempt changing course.

  “I’m coming to you, but you’re in the wrong spot!”

  “Forgive me.” Grinning, he teleported into her wobbling flight path.

  Breathless with laughter, she reached for him. He caught her hands, not pulling her in, just giving her an anchor as she flapped and flopped her way back up to hovering again. Finally she steadied, facing him with her wings beating in the same fluid rhythm as his.

  His eyes glowed a warm amber. “Well done, Andromeda.”

  “I don’t like that name, Mike.” Though still laughing, she cringed as it left her tongue. “God. It feels wrong just saying that.”

  “Does Andromeda feel wrong?”

  “No.” Not in the same way. It didn’t make her cringe. And the shorter version, Andy, was fine. “It’s just not how I think of myself.”

  “Taylor,” he said. “Because that is who you are on the job. And because your father is gone, your brother is hurt, and you are the Taylor who will carry on.”

  Every word true, though she’d never articulated
it so succinctly, not even to herself. She stared up at him, her chest squeezing into nothing. “How do you know that?”

  “Because studying you pleases me. Learning about you pleases me.” His hands gripped her waist, drew her in close. “And what I know of you is why Andromeda fits as no other name does.”

  “If you know so much about me, you should also know why I hate it.”

  “I don’t, but I would like to. Your mother once told me that your father named you after the constellation.”

  Her father, the amateur astronomer. Jason had gotten that from him, too. The Taylors were always looking to the heavens—but each of them looking for different things.

  “But you know who the constellation was named after? A princess, a sacrifice to appease the angry gods. Who ended up tied to a rock and almost eaten by a monster, until a hero saved her.” Vehemently, Taylor shook her head. “That’s not me. I don’t need a freaking hero. I’ll save myself.”

  “So you wouldn’t hate the name if she had freed herself.”

  “That would help.”

  “Do you hate the name Joseph Preston? He needed someone to save him.”

  And Taylor had, throwing herself in front of bullets to do it. “But that’s different. He was my partner. I wasn’t some random guy with magical powers who just shows up at the right time, and he wasn’t a princess who ends up being a prize. Something to own.”

  “If I were chained to a rock and soon to be eaten by a monster, I wouldn’t care who saved me.”

  Michael was smiling as he said it, and she knew that he was just teasing her a little—but she couldn’t stop herself from answering seriously.

  “We’re not talking literally. Of course I’d be glad to be saved. But we’re talking about having the name of someone who didn’t save herself, and carrying that name around. Because if we’re going literal, maybe I should point out that I was against a rock in Hell, and you were the monster. So it’s no surprise that you think the name fits—except there was no one to save me. Khavi doesn’t count, because she stabbed me.”

  “I remember.” A shadow moved across his face, leaving his eyes as dark as the night. No more teasing. “The name fits because I don’t think of it literally. Instead I feel as those ancient men did, studying the constellations and trying to understand them, to know them—and I was one of those who looked to the stars and wondered, too.”

  Why would he have to? “Didn’t the angels tell you what the stars were? Did you ask?”

  “Of course. That didn’t mean I understood the answer eight thousand years ago. How can the same stuff that makes up the air burn so hot? How can those gases be so dense at the core that no one but an angel could hope to lift more than a handful? I didn’t understand what the stars were until the past fifteen hundred years, and that’s only because the same ideas had been permeating discussions around the world. Finally, the angels’ explanation began to make sense.” He studied her for a long second. “But knowing the scientific explanation, tell me that you don’t look up and marvel, too.”

  Who didn’t? But it still didn’t make any sense. “And you think that makes my name fit?”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  His gaze searched her face. Whatever he saw there couldn’t have been what Taylor saw when she looked, not when he used words like marvel and wonder. But when his warm hand cupped her jaw, when his thumb stroked across her bottom lip, she knew what he saw then—her eyes, gleaming a pale blue. Because she could see the light, too, glowing over his bronze skin, washing away the shadows and shining in the inky darkness of his eyes.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he said softly. “Perhaps when I look at Andromeda in the heavens, I am more the man who wants to swoop in like a conquering hero and claim his prize, to own just a little bit of her. Because life will end far too soon, but the constellations will endure. And my only hope is to impress myself upon her, because if something I’ve said or done is forever stamped upon someone so beautiful and so endless, perhaps a part of me will endure, too.”

  Michael would endure. He always had. He didn’t need her for that.

  But her throat was so tight, she could barely get the words past it. “I think it’s safe to say that you’ve left your mark on me.”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Not deeply enough.”

  Her heart thudded. Slowly, his head descended. Giving her time to get away.

  She wasn’t going anywhere. Not even if the world broke apart in the next moment. Before the end came, she needed this. At least once.

  With a sweep of her wings, Taylor rose to meet his lips.

  No brilliant white light surrounded them, no darkness and pain. Just Michael, and his gentle kiss.

  He wasn’t tasting her yet, but exploring the shape of her lips with his, matching the curve of her smile. All so perfect. The heat of his mouth, the strength of his hands, the pounding of his heart.

  Perfect, except too much space still separated them. Her palms smoothed up over his shoulders, fingers sliding through his short, thick hair and cupping the back of his head. Eagerly, she pressed closer. God, the feel of his body against hers. So hard, so strong. Every muscle taut, and his lips no longer smiling, no longer exploring. Her wings didn’t beat so steadily now, erratic sweeps that threatened to pull her away from him, up and down. Gusts of swirling air blew strands of auburn hair forward across her cheeks. His hands tightened at her waist.

  “Andromeda.”

  Her name was a soft growl against her mouth—and for the first time, that name felt as right as he did. Michael. Not the man she’d imagined he was, but exactly the man she needed.

  With a sigh, Taylor parted her lips and invited him in.

  And fell.

  His taste. Oh, God. Not even a flavor but his hunger and the heat of his tongue stroking into her mouth. Need sliced through her like a sword, and everything she’d kept inside spilled out, a hunger that matched his, not a dragon’s but a woman’s, and just as impossible to tear herself away from this, though they were falling, spinning out of the sky.

  She didn’t care. She’d already wrecked herself upon him.

  But there was no pain here. His mouth still devouring hers, Michael turned his back to the sea as they hit. Water crashed around his wings. The impact smashed through her, jolted teeth and lips and the instant warmth of his healing Gift. Cold followed, the taste of copper and sting of salt in her eyes. Swirling darkness pressed around them, filling her ears with the rush of the ocean and the pounding of her heart. Sinking deeper, into this kiss, into him. The blue glow lighting the water paled, then grew brighter and brighter. She clung to him, ravenous, her nails digging into his scalp, trying to take more. This was everything she’d wanted, and now that she had it, only more would do.

  When would it be enough? It never could be.

  Never enough of Michael’s fingers, tightening on her nape, angling her for a deeper kiss. Never enough of the humming in his throat, the sound caught on the edge of torture and bliss. Never enough of his tongue thrusting past her lips, promising to give the more she needed with every hungry lick.

  And still falling. Pressure built against her ears—then popped and Taylor spun out of the kiss, senses reeling. Stars overhead. The sea below.

  Michael’s mouth fastened to her throat.

  A delicious shiver raced over her skin. Moaning, she arched against him. His tongue traced up the side of her neck.

  Slowing. Tasting the salt, she realized, just as he had the wine on the beach. Regaining control.

  This time, disappointment filled her soft moan. As if in answer, he kissed the corner of her jaw, then sipped the seawater clinging to her lips.

  But he was right to stop now. They had so much to do.

  With a heavy sigh, she drew back to look at him. Eyes obsidian, his black hair slicked tight to his skull. Pulling away hadn’t been easy. Need still held him rigid. She read the agony of it in the tautness of his jaw, the flatness of his lips.

  Heard it in th
e roughness of his voice. “There’s not enough time.”

  Before the world burned? “There will be,” she said.

  It had to be.

  “Yes.” His eyes closed briefly. “I will make it enough.”

  Though still rough, sheer determination hardened each word. Taylor smiled, wound her arms around his shoulders, and pulled herself closer again.

  “We will be pretty busy, though. We have a lot to do: Try to find a little justice for Mark Brandt. Rebuild Caelum. Hunt down the sentinels and stop them from creating that portal.” All necessary, but still not everything that she wanted to do. “If the world does end, though, you have to promise me we’ll fit in a quickie.”

  “Or several.” His grin flashed, stark and beautiful. “I can be very quick.”

  Her laugh burst out, but faded as his gaze intensified, locked on her face. The fierce emotion hardening his features and heating his eyes to a warm amber glow wasn’t one that she’d seen from him before, but Taylor thought she knew what that was.

  Or what she hoped it was. Because she felt it, too.

  But with the future so uncertain, no plans or promises now. No declarations.

  Except one.

  “Whatever time, it will be enough, Andromeda.” His arms tightened around her. “It will be.”

  CHAPTER 16

  At this moment, Taylor had too much time.

  Before the sun rose over the bay east of San Francisco, she finished scanning the surveillance videos from cameras within five blocks of the drive-through where a vampire or demon had bought a biscuit for Mark Brandt. She’d seen plenty of vehicles, but between the angles and the predawn lighting, she didn’t get a good look at most of the drivers.

  But it wasn’t a dead end. Not yet. She ran the plates for each car. Not a single one listed as stolen, no rentals. She ran the names on the registrations. Nothing popped. That didn’t mean she was done. Names could be falsified. Cars could be taken and returned without the owner noticing. The person who’d been driving it might not have been the person listed—and one of them might have been a demon.