Destiny's Knight: A Fallen Angel Protector Paranormal Romantic Suspense Book (Guarded Souls 1)

by Lexxie Couper

  He dipped his head in a single nod. It was for the best. He had no business allowing her to kiss him, or kissing her in return—wanting to do more than kiss her in return—and he did have work to do.

  He couldn’t concentrate on finding the fallen responsible for this situation with Billie close to him. Being in the same building was stretching his control as it was, distracting him.

  “Your room is down the hall, second on the right.”

  She cocked an eyebrow even as she pulled a shaky breath. “My room? Been planning this for long? Are you sure it’s Gilbert I need to be worried about?”

  He snorted out a laugh and rolled his eyes. “The room you can use while you are here.”

  She chewed her bottom lip and shuffled her feet again.

  “Consider it your private space. I will not enter it without your express permission.”

  “Like a vampire?”

  He pictured Kade. The thought of Guarded Souls’ owner, a 3,000-year-old vampire at Billie’s bedroom door, with his brooding masculinity and timeless sensuality, made his teeth ache. Something dark and ancient snaked through him.

  Jealousy?

  “Like an angel,” he answered, with a small dip of his head. “We winged ones cannot lie, remember.”

  Eyes narrowing, she plucked at her thumbnail. “Fair enough. Any chance you might have left some clothes for me in that room? Seeing as I’m…” She flicked a glance down her body.

  He didn’t do the same. Her current attire—the black tank top and boxer shorts she’d been wearing when she’d invited him into her home—taunted him. It was branded in his brain, his consciousness. His very soul. Indelible and inescapable.

  “You’ll find spare clothes in the closet.”

  Her eyebrows disappeared behind her fringe again.

  “Some of my older clothes,” he clarified. Hell, why did the image of her in his old PJs suddenly render him on fire? “Items I no longer require.”

  Her lips twitched. “I’m not sure we’ve reached that stage of the relationship, Mr. Knight, me wearing your clothes, but seeing as I have no real choice…”

  She turned and walked from the living room.

  He moved his stare to the dark television screen and kept it there. Safer that way.

  She lingered on the air though, taunting him, teasing his senses. An angel’s senses were heightened, the pinnacle of conditioning and creation. At that moment, he’d give his left arm for the less-than-effective sensory development of a mere human.

  The second door on the right down the hallway opened, and he stiffened. “Wilhelmina?” he called. His reflection stared back at him from the television’s screen. His own eyes judged him, mocked him. “Don’t try to escape.”

  “You’re taking all the fun out of this abduction, Mr. Knight.” Her reproach floated back to him from the hallway.

  He grimaced around a low laugh and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Not an abduction, Billie,” he corrected.

  “In that case, I expect poached eggs, avocado, and Vegemite on toast for breakfast tomorrow morning.” He smiled at the laughter in the her retort. “And contact my masseuse. For some reason, I feel like I’ve been put through the wringer.”

  “Good night, Billie.”

  “Good night, Nathanial.”

  He closed his eyes.

  His name. She’d finally said his name.

  If she knew how much it affected him, she’d likely make a deal with Lucifer herself to get as far away from him as she could.

  Seconds of silence stretched for an eternity before Billie closed the door.

  Eyes still closed, he felt her moving around the spare room, exploring it, before the springs of the mattress told him she’d climbed into bed.

  “Enough.” He barred his mind to her. Shut down the craving to connect with her.

  Lowering himself into the armchair she’d collided with, he concentrated on Gilbert Sanders instead.

  Searched for him.

  With any human, there was a certain ebbing and flowing of their impact on existence, an impact angels could tap into if required. But Gilbert’s impact had shifted. He was hard to find.

  Worryingly so.

  It shouldn’t be this difficult to locate him, even without his—

  “There,” he muttered at the hint of a hazy presence. “Found you.”

  Wisps of the man hung on the temporal plane, faint and fraying.

  A cold tension bloomed in Nathanial’s chest. The willing sale of Gilbert’s soul had morphed him into something beyond human, which was not normal for such a transaction. In fact, the remnants of his human existence barely tinged the Order of Actuality.

  Concentrating harder, he snagged one of the wisps with his mind, and—cloaking his own presence—melded his consciousness with it.

  —musthaveherlustherburningupburningmusthaveherfindhermust—

  A scream ripped through the air. High and shocked.

  He recoiled, tearing himself from the turbulent, licentious chaos of Gilbert’s subconscious. Flashes of his brief second joined to the man’s mind lashed at him, thick and hot and insidious, and he clawed at his scalp.

  What the hell was that?

  Nothing like you’ve ever experienced before.

  Clammy ice crawled over him, tainted with depravity, obsession and…more. A burning chill, at once primordial and newborn.

  His stomach lurched. Thankfully he hadn’t eaten in over a week, otherwise he suspected everything in his gut would be expelled from his body in a violent gush and on the floor now.

  “Knight?”

  He jerked upright in the armchair at the sound of Billie’s voice, swiping at his mouth.

  Can’t let her see you like this.

  “You okay?”

  She rounded the side of the chair, worry etched on her face.

  He ground his teeth. The sight of her wearing his old sweatpants battered his sanity. She was too human, too easy to break, to wound. Too fragile and precious.

  Too defenseless.

  Protect her.

  Scrubbing at the back of his neck, he frowned. “Of course I’m okay.”

  She frowned back. “So you just randomly scream for no reason then? It’s a thing you do?”

  “Scream? I didn’t…”

  The earlier wail, the one he’d heard as he’d torn himself from Gilbert’s existence thread in the temporal plane, came back to him.

  His scream.

  He swiped at his mouth again and rose to his feet, almost knocking into Billie.

  She scurried back a step, exasperation replacing the worry on her face. “Sure, I’ll get out of your road.”

  He needed… He needed…

  Help.

  Shit.

  “Hey.”

  A strong, warm hand closed around his arm, and he hissed, flinching from the touch.

  “Knight.” Billie frowned, her grip tightening. “Talk to me. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Can you? I mean, can angels see ghosts?”

  He dropped his stare to where her fingers pressed to his skin. Contact. Her body to his.

  Her flesh to his.

  Destiny… My Destiny…

  His. To kiss whenever he wanted. She was his. He’d sold his—

  He reeled away from her, on fire and enveloped in ice at the same time.

  “Knight?” His name fell from her in a shaky whisper. Fear laced the sound.

  Knight. Nathanial Knight. His name was Nathanial Knight. He was an angel, not…

  Gilbert.

  The memory of what she looked like to the man, how Gilbert hungered for her, assaulted Nathanial, like molten iron searing into raw flesh.

  The connection. Melding with the now soulless man. It had…had…

  He shuddered, skin crawling, a sour tang filling his mouth.

  How was he to locate the man if he couldn’t seek out the wisps of his threads? How else was he to know where Gilbert Sanders was if being infected by the man’s unhinged lust for Billie
was the result?

  “I will slap the hell out of you if you don’t tell me what’s going on?” Billie growled to his right.

  He flicked her a glance—and gasped as a tsunami of craven lust smashed through him. Gilbert’s lust.

  Closing his eyes, he drew a deep breath. Human behavior, to be sure, but it grounded him. Fought against the taint of Gilbert in his being.

  Releasing it, he opened his eyes again.

  Looked at Billie.

  A wave of desire swept through him, but his. The one he’d wrestled with for a lifetime. Not Gilbert’s. His own.

  “I’m okay, Billie,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “I’m sorry I startled you. It was just a…”

  Just a what?

  “An angel thing,” he finished.

  Her frown deepened. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  She studied him for a second. “I have pointed out this is a very weird abduction, right?”

  “Rescue,” he said with a smile.

  She chuckled. “Right. See you in the morning.”

  She left again, glancing back at him once before making her way to her room.

  He didn’t move until the door to the room closed once more, and then he slumped into the armchair, squeezed his eyes shut, and released the restraint on his mind.

  Erah, he called silently. Brother, I need you.

  Chapter 4

  “First things first,” Billie muttered, rubbing her palms on her thighs. “Getting out of here.”

  But that kiss…

  “Getting out of here,” she repeated, fisting the soft material of Knight’s sweatpants as she studied the windows of the room.

  Seriously, that kiss, though.

  “Is the reason to get with the getting out of here.”

  Crossing the room, she parted the gauzy curtains and tugged at the window’s lock.

  Nothing. Not even a hint of a movement.

  Gritting her teeth, she tried the lock again.

  Nope. It didn’t budge.

  “Damn it.”

  Outside, clouds streamed across the dark sky, playing peekaboo with the fat moon. Way off in the distance, a faint white glow rose up from the horizon. LA? Or somewhere else?

  If it was somewhere else, how did they get there so fast?

  “And if it is LA,” she muttered, “getting this far away from it in a matter of seconds isn’t fast? Or freaky?”

  She sighed and pressed her forehead to the glass, studying the glow for a few moments before checking out the dark ground on the other side of the window.

  Well, at least she now knew they were in a house, an actual house, and not in some weird, floating-in-the-sky/other-dimension type thing.

  “Huh, always looking for the silver lining, Bill.”

  A soft laugh fell from her. There was no denying the whole thing was beyond weird, but she had two options for dealing with it. One, accept she really was caught up in some kind of otherworldly situation, or two, accept the fact she’d lost her mind at some point and was probably tripping on medication in a padded cell right now. And while the first option was borderline insane, it was better than the last.

  “Still not going to sit around and wait for whatever’s about to happen next though,” she grumbled, pushing away from the window and moving to the one next to it.

  We don’t want to think some more about that kiss? Maybe go out there and ask for another one?

  “No, we don’t.” She fought with the curtain—stupid floaty thing—and grabbed at the lock. “And no, we don’t.”

  The lock didn’t move.

  “Damn it,” she repeated, twisting around to slump against the wall.

  Sliding down it, she hit the floor with a soft thud and, wrapping her arms around her knees, glared at the room.

  As far as prisons went, it was cozy. If Knight had decorated it, he had good taste. Just like the living room, it was understated class, with a muted color scheme of grays and whites. The bed was massive, as was the mirror on the opposite wall. In the closet, along with the sweatpants she’d already nabbed, was an array of jeans, chinos, and shirts. Knight had a thing for neutral colors in his wardrobe. Was that an angel thing? Was there a uniform for when those of his kind wandered around here on Earth amongst the mortals?

  The kiss?

  She huffed into her fringe.

  Okay, sure. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not at the moment, at least. May as well contemplate The Kiss.

  She knew this one had been different. Nothing like the kiss she’d given Nathanial while under his…angel/Jedi influence, the kiss in the living room had utterly shaken her to her very core. While the kiss he’d elicited from her back at her house had somehow been tinged with an out-of-body lightness, like the whole thing had been filtered through a misty lens, this one had been vivid and sharp in its clarity. There’d been no confusion or hesitation or delirium.

  Overwhelmed by the news he could cure Adelaide of her nicotine addiction, she’d instantly regressed to the behavior of an excited little girl and kissed him without thought.

  But it had ignited something in her. That quick and impulsive connection of lips had awaken in her a desire for more, a need for more, and when he’d sworn he’d had nothing to do with that brief kiss, well, that need had urged—no, propelled her to kiss him again.

  To truly kiss him.

  Of her own accord.

  For her own desire.

  For her own…

  “Lust?”

  She shoved herself to her feet.

  From the second Nathanial Knight had smiled at her through the camera of her CCTV screen, she’d accepted she was sexually attracted to him. The second he’d crossed her threshold, the second she’d breathed him in, touched his hard body with her fingers, felt his skin warm hers…yeah, sexual attraction was an understatement. But that last kiss… She’d never had a kiss rock her to the core like that.

  Not even her producer—who’d popped her sexual-exploration cherry in more ways than one—had turned her veins to molten rivers of carnal hunger.

  And yet it was more than that. That kiss…there was a promise to it, a whole new existence.

  A glimmer of something beyond sexual attraction.

  A hope of something…deeper. More profound.

  Significant.

  “And that’s enough thinking of the kiss.” She had to get out of here, before she completely lost all sense of reality and decided it was possible to fall in love with an angel. Rubbing her palms on the thighs of Knight’s sweatpants again, she hurried to the bed. The pillows on it were big and fluffy. One of those pressed to the window would surely muffle the sound of the glass breaking when she smashed her shoulder against it.

  She tested the pillows, weighed them against each other, and selected the one she liked the most.

  You know this is lunacy, right?

  Yep. But to hell with doing nothing. She was not the do-nothing kind.

  If she was, she wouldn’t have up and moved to the US on a whim to see what else life had to offer when she was eighteen. She’d most likely still be working at the deli in her local supermarket, wondering what if?

  Of course, if you were still at the deli, Gilbert the Stalker wouldn’t even know you existed, so he wouldn’t have become obsessed with you, wouldn’t have sold his soul to the devil to get you, and you wouldn’t now be cast in the role of damsel in distress with a sexier than legally allowed angel as your unlikely savior.

  “Oh boy.” Yeah, this situation…

  “Time to get out of it,” she muttered. “Before I go completely crazy.”

  She’d get out, away from the unnerving allure of Nathanial Knight and his equally unnerving story, and get her arse to the nearest police station. Tell them about Gilbert, leave out the abduction-by-angel part, and call Adelaide.

  Yeah, that’s a plan. A sane plan. Let’s get on it.

  Hugging the pillow to her chest, she crossed to the door and—wincing at the possibility of it sque
aking—inched it open.

  Listened.

  Knight’s deep voice—like distant thunder—wafted back to her from the living room. Who was he talking to? The djinn he’d mentioned earlier? Himself?

  Voices in his head?

  Didn’t matter. The fact there was no other voice was enough to let her know he was still alone. He may be an angel, and phenomenally sexy, and incomprehensibly the best kisser in existence, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t loopy, too.

  Adding a precautionary cringe to her wince, she closed the door, tested it really was closed—and then realized she had no way of stopping him from coming into the room at the sound of breaking glass, muffled by a pillow or not.

  “Damn it,” she whispered yet again.

  Her mother would want to wash her blasphemous mouth out with soap.

  She scanned the room. Thanks to Knight’s affection for minimalism, there wasn’t a bureau or dresser she could use as a barricade at the door.

  Of course. Had she really thought escaping from an angel would be easy?

  Tugging at her thumbnail, she frowned. Maybe if she pulled all the bedding from the mattress and piled it against the door? It wouldn’t slow him down for long, but it could be enough.

  Cringe and wince firmly back in place, she yanked the duvet, other pillows, and sheets from the bed and heaped them against the door.

  She studied her handiwork. Hardly a fortified barrier, but then, she didn’t have much to work with. “It’ll have to do.”

  Retrieving her preferred glass-smashing pillow from the now naked bed, she crossed to the window, slid the curtains open, and checked outside again.

  It didn’t look that far down to the ground. A few feet.

  It’s also dark. What if there’re rocks? You’re not wearing any shoes.

  Grinding her teeth, she took a few steps away from the window and pressed the pillow to the curve of her shoulder.

  She’d seen stunt doubles on the show do this kind of thing many times, throw themselves through a window. She herself had practiced the move—under the guidance of the show’s stunt coordinator—more than once, in a desire to do her own stunts, until the studio’s insurance agency stepped in and vetoed the idea. Of course, that had been prop glass, and there’d been no need to try to hide the whole routine from an angel in the other room who may or may not be delusional, so there was that, but…