by J. K. Coi
He ignored her, his smile oozing malevolence. “You know, it’s only fitting that the one who stole emotion from me should be brought low by it.”
Amelia stopped in her tracks, thrown by the wave of hate coming from the other angel. Donato had somehow discovered a way to circumvent the wards binding their kind to the angel realms. He didn’t seem to be feeling the weakening effect of his escape yet, but as a result of spending too much time in the human world, he was experiencing the return of his emotions. The tone of his voice gave it away as much as the cruelty in his eyes. Filled with bile and darkness. Evil.
Was the same thing happening to her? Was he right that she would be brought low, that emotion would transform her into a hate-filled, greedy creature if allowed to root within her soul once again?
If this is what would happen to all the angels if the capacity to feel emotion were returned, Amelia was right to have taken the side of the more powerful Archangels. She would do it again if necessary—which it very well might be.
The rogue laughed at her, drawing too much satisfaction from this confrontation.
“Draw your weapon, Donato,” she demanded, fingers tightening reflexively on her sword. “I don’t want to cut you down unarmed, but I will do it, make no mistake.”
“I don’t think so, Avenger. Not today. But don’t you worry, the time will come when you’re too weak to stop me—shouldn’t be long, by the looks of it—and on that day I’ll find you.” He paused with a smile. “Until then…I thought I would do you a favor.”
“Just what kind of favor can you do for me?”
“I wanted to give you one last chance to accept the inevitability of what has to occur.” The light in his eyes flashed as he leaned closer, heedless of the blade Amelia clutched between them in her white-knuckled fist.
“I don’t want the human’s body…just his soul. In fact, I’m more than happy to relieve him of the burden,” he taunted her. “If you give him up to me now, perhaps he’ll even survive what is to come.”
Amelia understood that the emotion she felt now was anger. No, it was rage. White hot. She accepted it and channeled it into her sword arm as she swung for Donato’s head.
But he was already gone.
Chapter Five
“I can’t fly.”
“Well of course not, you don’t have wings. Luckily, we have these ingenious machines these days called airplanes…”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“It was a joke, o literal bodyguard-type person.” Gabriel sighed. “Granted, not a particularly stellar one.” He smiled and went back to stuffing various shades of denim into his duffel bag. “Why can’t you fly, are you afraid?”
Afraid? Amelia had recently accepted that the emotion did exist in her—along with a number of others she had yet to properly categorize and come to terms with—but no, she wasn’t afraid of flying.
That didn’t mean she could get anywhere near an airplane. Her seraphic aura would play havoc with the electrical systems and send the contraption diving out of the sky. An automobile was doable. The parts—even in these modern cars—were still mostly mechanical, rather than electrical. “I’m very much afraid that getting on an airplane would be disastrous.”
“Hmm, disastrous? Okay.” With a shrug, he zipped the sack and hefted it over his shoulder. “Could be that’s a sign this farce of ours has about reached its end. Idiot that I am, I was still kind of hoping I could see you when I get back.”
“When you—no.”
His jaw tightened and he started to turn away. Amelia took his arm, but regretted doing so immediately when they both stilled.
She held her breath. He twisted, looking down at her hand on his sleeve with an expression that triggered a warmth in her cheeks, doubled the tripping beat of her heart. She blinked and let him go. She lowered her gaze, afraid he would see just how fragile her control over these invading emotions was. “You shouldn’t go anywhere without me.”
“I’m not saying you can’t come with me, Amelia. But I won’t sit here feeling sorry for myself another damn day. I have things to take care of in Chicago. My friends—”
He sighed and dropped the bag back onto the bed. Lifting a hand to her face, he firmly tilted her chin up and stroked his thumb across her cheekbone, just beneath her eye. Touching her. Again. She didn’t understand this penchant he had for touching her at every opportunity, except that maybe it felt as good to him as it did to her—an unsettling and strangely thrilling thought.
“You know, I haven’t seen you eat much, if anything, since you got here.” His touch melted another layer of her swiftly disintegrating, protective shell. She was so close to letting him pull her into his body and cradle her in a cocoon of his warm human strength. “You look exhausted.”
Amelia was tired. She was more than tired.
She was dying.
“What does it say about the kind of person I am that a large part of me doesn’t want to go anywhere?” He shook his head. “I just want to sit around here feeding you and singing to you, and listening to you sing to me. I want to take you to bed and—” His touch stilled upon her cheek. His eyes darkened as if he hadn’t wanted to admit so much.
Something like hunger flared in her belly, and she, too, wished he hadn’t said so much.
“Listen. I don’t know what your real agenda is. I honestly can’t tell if you’re being straight up with me or not. But either way, I think you’ve been taking this whole protection thing a little too seriously. The cops have no leads on David’s killer. I’ve had no specific death threats in the past few weeks, and nothing to prove the attack was more than a random act of violence.” His fingers trailed south to the nape of her neck.
Amelia shivered, wondering why she hadn’t yet backed away.
“There was nothing random about it,” she murmured.
“Do you know this for a fact?”
She held her tongue, but that was becoming much harder to do.
“Damn you, Amelia.” His voice was hard, angry. “Unless you’re finally going to spill your guts, then I guess it’s time we went our separate ways. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t live in limbo, worrying about the spooks waiting around every corner.”
He let her go with a sigh. “Look. You haven’t taken a day off since the accident, and from what I can tell, you haven’t slept a wink since you’ve been here.”
He stopped her from voicing an objection with a small shake of his head. “This threat you’re so vague about is either going to explode in my face no matter how hard you work to protect me from it—” he gave her a rueful smile, “—or it’s a massive load of bullshit. Either way, it’s not really your problem anymore. I have obligations to attend to and we both need to get back to our respective lives. So why don’t you go home, and let me do what I have to do. In fact, you’re officially fired—with severance pay, of course.”
“Fired?”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s been interesting. You’re a damn hard nut to crack, Amelia White. And I gotta admit, it worked on me.”
“What do you mean? What worked on you?”
“You did. Your whole package. Beautiful, mysterious, yet freakishly capable. The whole thing is a total turn-on. You got me hook, line and sinker.”
Her mouth parted, but no words came out. She was not necessarily a stranger to the vagaries of human patterns of speech, but sometimes this man said the oddest things and she just didn’t know what the appropriate reaction could possibly be.
“I’ve been a real bastard since we met, haven’t I? The typically moody, temperamental rock star. I’m sorry you had to put up with that. You should be glad I’m letting you off the hook.”
Amelia’s mind whirled as she quickly weighed the pros and cons of Gabriel “firing” her. After Donato’s recent appearance, she wanted to reject the idea of letting him out of her sight for even a moment, but the truth was she might not have much choice.
She’d hit a wall, reaching nearly critical level
s of weakness. If she was going to regain some of her strength and have any chance of keeping her promise to Michael, she had to get back to the angel realms as soon as possible. Perhaps if she left now and Gabriel traveled to Chicago, he would drop off Donato’s radar long enough for her to recharge.
Despite her need for angel song, Amelia only considered such a change in plan because she could keep an eye on Gabriel no matter where she was. She’d ensured the connection between them on the day of his birth.
“I understand your need to visit your friend’s family.” Amelia spoke slowly, making a decision she could only pray was the right one. “All right, I’ll agree to let you go.”
“Let me go? You sound like a nervous mother putting her kid on the school bus for the first time.”
“Gabriel, you must not underestimate the danger—”
“I thought we went over this already. Are you going to tell me what you’ve been hiding?”
She shook her head. “You aren’t equipped to understand the magnitude of what is at stake.”
“So there is something.” His expression filled with a deep intensity as he gazed at her. “Talk to me, Amelia. I don’t believe you were involved in what happened, but you know more than you’re telling and I’ve officially had enough of it. You owe me an explanation.” He paused. “If you think that I’ll judge you…”
She shook her head. “I cannot be judged by the likes of you.”
He took a step forward, fists clenching as if he barely held back from shaking the life out of her. “Then at least tell me so I can be prepared, damn it. So I can defend myself against this phantom threat of yours.”
He was a strong man who grieved for his friend and deserved justice for his loss. She wanted to give him what he needed.
“You know it’s the right thing to do,” he urged, recognizing her hesitation.
She found herself considering it. He deserved to know the truth. But as conflicted as she’d begun to feel, it wasn’t her decision to make. “I will meet you in Chicago in a few days.”
He spun away with another of his colorful curses and a dark sneer. Amelia’s stomach bottomed out, making her feel nauseated and cold. At some point in the past few days the responsibilities she’d always accepted without question had become a burden that ran contrary to the obligation she now felt to this human.
“Damn you and your goddamn secrets.” He grabbed his bag and jerked it off the bed.
Amelia could let him go. She could watch him turn his back on her and walk away without saying another word. She could do it because, in the end, she would still fulfill her duty whether he knew she was there or not.
She could.
“Gabriel, wait.”
He continued past her, either not hearing or, more likely, not caring what she had to say. Amelia wasn’t even sure what she would say, but it hurt to see him like this. It hurt to keep deceiving him.
“Gabriel, please.” Stepping forward, she grabbed his hand. She felt the tension in him, the leashed anger and violence.
“No more.” He didn’t turn to face her, but she heard the denial in his voice. He wasn’t going to accept anything from her but the truth. “I don’t have the time or energy to keep playing these games with you.”
“No games. This has never been about playing games.”
“Then what the hell is this about?”
Still holding on, afraid he would leave if she didn’t, Amelia circled until she could look into his hard face. Despite his public success and wealth, Gabriel’s was a face that had lived with much pain. She knew better than most what he’d gone through, since she had been there, seen it happen.
She’d experienced it with the detachment of her emotionless existence, but now there were too many feelings warring within her, swamping her with hurt and guilt and loneliness. All the images of Gabriel’s past came back to haunt her. Amelia didn’t know how to make them stop. Maybe she deserved to feel his pain now as if it were her own.
She did the only thing she could think of. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth softly to his, kissing him.
The sharp electric shock flaring between them was instantaneous. A stronger, deeper expression of the awareness and heat that had been building inside her, simmering just under the surface since their first meeting.
Spooked, she pulled back almost instantly, but Gabriel growled deeply and followed her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, crushing his lips to hers in firm, unrelenting hunger. It felt alien and wonderful at the same time. Amelia couldn’t fight it, however wrong, however forbidden. She wanted to explore these feelings she’d been given, was tired of pretending she didn’t have them.
After only a brief hesitation, she slid her hands up his chest, twined her fingers around his neck. The measured beating of her heart was a deafening hammering in her ears. She felt it pounding away and wondered if Gabriel could feel it too.
His soft lips felt sinful, so incredible. She moaned and Gabriel responded in kind, pressing for more, sliding his tongue over the seam of her lips before slipping inside to sweep her mouth. Again and again until she matched him, giving him her tongue so that they dueled together in a slick, sensual challenge.
Her gasp broke through their heavy breathing and deep kisses as Gabriel’s hands pushed beneath the hem of her shirt. His calloused fingers were rough on the smooth skin of her waist, up the length of her spine, splaying over her back and pressing her closer to him as if they could melt into each other and become one person.
Regret and disappointment. That’s what she felt when he finally broke away to look into her face. Her gaze was caught by the drugging temptation of his mouth, and she self-consciously bit her lip against the urge to kiss him again.
“My God,” he whispered.
Amelia blinked, reason and duty slowly coming back into focus. “Gabriel, I wish I could tell you everything—”
His eyes flashed with temper again. He swore and jerked away from her, but she refused to let go, tugging him back.
“—and I will,” she promised, begging him to accept her sincerity for what it was. “I took an oath to keep certain secrets, but I also took an oath to protect you at all costs. To do that properly, I’ve decided you should know what it is you need protection from.”
“You took an oath? Amelia, you’re driving me crazy. What the hell are you talking about now?”
“Will you give me a few days? Will you let me take care of some things and come to you in Chicago?”
Gabriel shook his head and looked up to the ceiling with a heavy sigh. “And then you’ll tell me what’s going on?” He lifted a hand to her face, tracing the line of her kiss-swollen bottom lip with one finger. “No more inventive avoidance techniques?”
Strangely, Amelia was blushing. She could feel the warmth staining her cheeks. “Let me come with you to the airport first and see you safely onto the plane.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Please, Gabriel.”
Gabriel slid a sidelong glance at Amelia, who sat beside him in the back of the taxi cab. Her hands were entwined lightly in her lap and her head was turned away from him as she stared out the window.
What was she looking for out there? Did she see danger around every turn or was she keeping an eye out for her buddy? Had they both been waiting for just the right opportunity to attack him? But no, that didn’t make any sense. If she was working with the guy who’d tried to kill him, why would she have saved his life in that alley to begin with?
Not to mention the woman had been alone with him for a week with any number of opportunities to finish the job, if that’s what she wanted, but the closest she’d come to voluntarily touching him had been one explosive kiss back at the penthouse.
You’re an idiot.
Amelia hadn’t told him anything. He doubted he could trust her further than his nose. And yet he still hadn’t gotten rid of her. She continued to stand at attention by his side.
Because of a kiss. A mostly innocent,
completely clothed…absolutely mind-blowing kiss. One that made him question whether he’d ever experienced a real kiss before Amelia dropped into his life.
Gabriel shook his head in disgust and turned to look out his own passenger window. The sky was clear and bright. It would be a good day to fly the hell out of here. Maybe once he was in the air, he’d be able to think more clearly, without her subtle scent clogging his senses or her soft lips taunting him to taste her again.
Such a gullible, horny fucking idiot.
The cab’s two-way crackled as a voice echoed through, rattling off a series of street addresses. The driver picked up the mouthpiece and replied back to the dispatcher in heavily accented Portuguese.
Amelia had turned to watch, her attention glued to the exchange in the front seat. Her intent focus struck Gabriel as odd. In fact, he’d noticed more than once that the woman’s reactions to normal, everyday shit were often exaggerated, as if she’d been locked up in a convent and had never seen cell phones and radios or driven in cars before.
“So, you don’t drive?” And just how did a professional security officer get away without knowing how to drive, or being able to get on a plane?
She tore her gaze from the cab driver. Her blue eyes were bright. “I haven’t had the opportunity to learn how,” she answered with a shrug.
Didn’t every teenager make the opportunity as soon as they were legally and financially able to, especially when it meant a driver’s license and freedom from the parental units?
Before he could comment, the cabbie looked at them over his shoulder. “Where do you two want me to drop you off?”
Gabriel raised a brow. After the thick, rapid-fire Portuguese, their driver’s completely American, unaccented English was unexpected. “Domestic would be great. Thanks.”
“Sure thing. It’ll be twenty-five bucks. You want to get your money ready? This time of day, they won’t let me stop for more than a few seconds.”
As the car turned into the busy drive leading to the domestic departures entrance, Gabriel hoped he hadn’t made a mistake going out in public without more cover. After what happened at the concert, it should have been a concern, but he’d never worried before and it hadn’t occurred to him to do so now. Despite his success, Gabriel always looked different enough when he wasn’t wearing the stage makeup and shit that he rarely got recognized.
